What do you do when the harp that you're playin'
starts your fingers a' bleedin' and you've no hope of stayin'
and you go to your knees and you try to start prayin'
but a voice in your head says you're only obeyin'
and the cloud where you're sittin' turns red with the danger
that you'll bleed through to Hell on account of your anger
and you wonder if that's where you won't be a stranger
and you won't have to bow to a boy from a manger

and you get off your knees and you stare down His throne
and you notice how much you seem to have grown
and you tear off your halo and spit at his feet
and for two gilded seconds your revenge is so sweet
but with tears in His eyes he rips off your wings
and without even time to let you get your things
he casts you straight down like a fistful of rain
and your pleas and your cries are all but in vain

as the fires below you now give you their mercy
and you feel like a sailor turned donkey by Circe
and you wonder why angels are so hard to hear
and why is the kingdom a'headin' towards fear
when its you that they're fearin' in their curses and cries
but the truth they discover when each one of them dies
is that they're nothin' at all to the lord King of Kings
or to you, flexing muscles in your new pair of wings
as you fly through the night for to hear what He sings

sittin' right by the side of the St. Peter's Gate
so far from the screams of your kingdom of hate
where still you're a stranger, still strangely alone
among valleys of poison and halls of brimstone
and you wonder, what if someone, all hurting and bone
cast down his pitchfork and spit at your feet
would you cast him to listen, damned to God's songs
or is this where he truly belongs?

--daniel westreich--