Hot Coals

And nobody tells you

That heartache feels like the flu

Everything hurts and nothing helps

You can't get warm

Even if you strip down

And bury yourself in hot coals

You can't get warm

It never hurts

The way you think it would

It always hurts worse

And in a way you can't prepare for

The heartache works its way

Deep into your bones

Like some terrible, starving worm

And then further into your soul

It's the feeling of having slipped

And fallen but not yet hit the ground

It's the feeling of purgatory

You're a ghost wandering aimlessly

Between heaven and hell

It's the feeling of the bull in the holding pen

Waiting, bleeding

It's the feeling of a 10,000 ton train

Stalled atop the rails

Somewhere in south dakota

The air thick with a winter so cold

Hell beneath it has frozen over

And so you stumble out of the boxcar

You dig your hands in the dirt

In attempt to fill the open wounds

In your chest with soil

From the frozen earth

But the clay never seems to hold

And somewhere in your digging

And reaching and clinging

You are reminded that you are kneeling

And you decide to pray

You say

God, do not give me what I want

Give me what I need