Straight From The Tap

Okay take it,
Wait
Hold on just one second.
I need to adjust the light, maybe turn my head to the right, make sure my beanie is on just right, make sure my shirt is a little tight, get that flexin goin to open up those thighs, make sure my muscles look defined, try to look like I'm not afraid of a fight, try to look fly, try to look like a manly guy, try to make the lies less noticeable and make the truth harder to find.
I mean if you look at me, what do you see?
The glasses and beanie? 
Maybe you'll think I'm some intelligent, judgmental poser, not that I simply have bad eyes.
Do you see the letter B?
Do you know the blood sweat and tears put in to swimming and water polo before I was named varsity?
No, you just see what I want you to see... But even more than that, you see only what you want to see.
I could show you how I'm actually doing, show you the broken heart and the limping beat. I could show you the scars from schoolyard bullies and girls who are looking for a guy "just like you," that isn't me which just won't be because I'm the only one like me... Or so I like to think.
I could show you the broken bones I've gotten from jumping into girls without parachutes, and I could show you arrow holes from cupid's painful sense of humor.
I could show you scarred wrists as I hated myself so much I etched into it "worthless."
I could show you the way she hung me on a cross, and stabbed my side, just to watch the last "I love you's" bleed from my last breathes of life, before she ripped my heart out, and tossed it aside.
I could show you all of these things, but I bet you don't have the time. I could show you how I am still broken inside, but that means more moments wasted to my pitiful life. I know you just want to hear "oh I'm fine" even though we both hurt inside, but you don't want your money being spent on someone else's penny. Isn't that funny, how time is money, and you'll pay a penny for my thoughts, yet when your time is more valuable than the 2 cents I have you forget the sense of a sensible gentleman and leave before my breathe has a chance to exit.
You can judge me based on appearances, but
What is less obvious from appearances is the level of my Christian.
I am less of the cross wearing, Sunday morning Christian and more of a life changed, all consuming, Jesus freak, which the church don't like to speak of. 
I don't wear a cross because I want people to see from my actions the name I proclaim, not by some wooden symbol on my neck. 
I want to get tatted, express my inward emotions through art on my arms, not judge someone based on their idea of art.
I love gay people, I don't picket funerals.
I believe everyone needs to be saved, not because everyone is horrible but because the only reason I haven't committed suicide is this dude named Christ. 
But what I'm guessing is that the moment I said Christian, you turned off this video like "this bro ain't sane, he lame! Look I got to go."
So to answer the prompting,
I agree, let's take off the filters, not just me but let's let everyone see who we really are. Bring the skeletons from our closets and the secrets from our lock boxes, bring em so everybody can see. 
Show the scars from past and present suffering. 
But if know that some of us don't have just anything underneath, because personally, if you remove everything, I have a tree.
I have the tree from Golgotha's skull, the place he said "it is finished" as he went from life to death, and brought me from death to life, the ultimate sacrifice, love depicted perfectly, making me dead to death and given new breathe, new life, like Lazarus, zombie.
You'll see all of the scars and stains, but the one thing that's different is I'll boast in my weakness because in my pain, his strength is lifted high. So go ahead, look at me one more time, no filter, no filler, just me; what do you see?
 

 

This poem is about: 
Me

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