all i dream are bright lights surrounding. 
        i imagined my breath be eaten by an angel;
        with my eyes closed i think she stands above me. 
        i see the bright light through my eyelids but 
        when i open to the world the room is empty..
        unchanged. 
        when i reach out in prayer 
        i hold my hands together tight 
        as if the landline is water and if 
        i let it trickle out the dial tone will sound, 
        eating all my words that walk shyly to the gates of heaven 
        or the pits of hell. 
        when i reach out in prayer i invite all to listen: 
        the devil or god or spirits high and low or the earth itself-- 
        if i ask all to come perhaps one may! 
        often the room feels empty still..
        unchanged. 
        i feel faith like a tangled cord;
        kinked somewhere in the twisting mess
        and my body constricted in the wires.
        i have tried to sever this enmeshment; 
        with sharpened tools and dulled teeth alike,
        but the thread cannot be broken 
        and i am not to be released. 
        empty room:
        or quiet room:
        or mind, body, spirit unchanged:
        it has been revealed to me! this matters not! 
        with it burrowed, matted, melding into flesh!: 
        there is no where to seek hearth but home. 
        

"take me back," you say.