Sam & I AM

You linger where my laughter lives, 
a whisper beneath each cheer.
You hum behind my victories, 
reminding me you are near.
You stand beside my every triumph, 
and tell me it’s pretend.
That love is just a borrowed thing, 
that leaves before it begins.
You teach me how to overstay, 
to work until I break.
To earn a seat I’ve already built, 
to smile through the ache.
You dress my worth in doing more, 
you hide my rest in fear.
You spiral through my quiet thoughts, 
“they always leave, just disappear”.
You sip from every cup of praise, 
but never let me taste.
You call it safety when I shrink, 
a wisdom marked by “just in case”.
You shadow every open hand, 
and whisper, don’t believe.
You make me thank the ones who go, 
and doubt the ones who don’t leave.
You’ve made a home inside my chest, 
hung curtains of failures and broken pictures.
So I talk to God like He too won't stay, 
cynical and wary of even the scriptures. 
And yet, I see you for what you are, 
the lie poisoning my blood.
Feeding me stories of shame and condemnation, 
dressing them up as love.
But it’s God who will restore you, 
unmoved by the flesh’s affliction.
He whispers love, making old things new,
with His Son’s divine conviction.
See God has undone what you tried to define, 
the worth that believes it's still haunted.
“You’ll never be good enough” is a lie, an echo, 
of the girl with the wound she called Unwanted.