From The Desk of David

I’m twenty-seven with pre-flood hips, acetabulum Armageddon, 

post-flood scripts etched in my pelvis, every step a small quake.

Sockets talking like tired prophets,
spent seers spitting smoke signals and soft sonnets,
who watched too much carpet-bombed history
and not nearly enough Sabbath mystery.

I’m laid out, vessel of confessions,
static saint on state-issue concessions,
on this crackling prison-grade plastic,
plastic priesthood, mattress Jurassic,
cheap cotton gown flapping like a failed fig leaf
figment of modesty, midriff grief
wristband barcode buzzing my government name
like a courtroom clerk, a clock-in chirp,
calling dust to the stand,
Calling my bones to raise their hand.

Fluorescents hum overhead, off-key menorahs in a metal sky,
a low-budget halo, a migraine lullaby.
Air smells like diluted incense and bleach—
brine of the breach—
Sinai sterilized, holiness in hospital fonts,
The IV tugs my vein
like a leash on my illusions,
like God on my grind, yanking back my delusions.

Jacob at Jabbok—
midnight match, no ref,
shadowboxing’ the Shaddai silhouette,
silk-smooth shadow that bleeds sweat,
ankles muddy, pulse manic,
breath breakbeat, heartbeat frantic,
grip-locked with God till dawn said, “Break,”
till sunrise served a cease-and-desist on the quake.

He begged for a blessing
and got his hip touched instead,
benediction by dislocation,
Rebrand written in red.
Staggered away, renamed Israel
one who wrestles with God and lives the tale,
“one who wrestles with God
and won’t tap out, won’t nod.”

Tell me my chart doesn’t read the same,
same script, new frame.
Diagnosis: bilateral Jabbok,
two-match card, no understock.
Double-hip replacement in covenant clothing,
operating-room oath, holy rehousing,
a scheduled dislocation,
a breaking to remake the foundation,
a breaking to remake
how I move, how I wake, how I walk, what’s at stake.

Pride’s iron grip pried off
joint by joint, point by point.
Self-sovereign swagger subpoenaed,
Autonomy arranged, ego convened, and
My “main character energy” finally in court,
lead role reduced to last resort.
This is not elective.
This is altar, all-in, all-objective.

Metaphors swarm like manna
in this wilderness ward, this white-walled panorama:
my body, a warped tabernacle
hinges squeak, beams buckle,
frame leans, curtain frays,
altar arthritic, atrium in disarray
still somehow housing a Spirit
who should’ve broken the lease by now, let’s hear it,
Given the noise complaint of my sin,
bass-heavy rebellion through these paper-thin shins.

I used to roar self-sufficient,
solo saint, self-sent, self-efficient,
March like I was my own Exodus,
own exit plan, own exodus,
Red Sea parting for my planner,
Google Cal as my cloud and banner,
Calvary crushed into a coffee schedule,
cross reduced to a bullet in my hustle,
blood-bought mercy penciled,
thin lead line between meetings and leg day, stenciled.

I called it discipline.
Heaven called it DIY divinity,
bootleg god-mode masculinity,
unlicensed lordship, counterfeit Trinity.
I treated rest like a rumor,
whispered, weak, quickly removed, sir,
weakness like copyright infringement,
sue the frailty, file the resentment.

Autonomy was my golden calf,
cast in limited-edition sneaker leather, staff,
laced tight, flexed light,
stepping loud on other people’s pain at night
while my own joints crumbled
under quiet rebellion, humble
noises in the bone,
rebellion rattling the throne.

Gravity finally dropped the diss track:
“You’re not the exception
to Eden’s eviction;
you’re just another tenant
in a tilted world’s friction.”
Hook so heavy it snapped my back.

Every flare-up footnoted my theology:
“See also: hubris of autonomy,
encyclopedia entry on foolish chronology.”
Pain lowered my pulpit a few inches,
dragged my doctrine down
from clouds to cartilage,
from abstract to ache, from ivory to stitches.

Self-help sermons masquerade as grace,
mask on, mic on, same stage, same space,
“Set your boundaries, manifest blessings.”
Cross less TED Talks in choir dressings.
Youth nights feel like tour openers,
fog-filled festivals for teen-aged owners,
church lobbies like merch tables,
brand-name Bibles, Jesus labels,
fog machines hiding the fact
Nobody mentioned repentance all month in the act.

Social media metrics burn like incense
before ego’s altar, algorithmic pretense,
blue check as high-priest garment,
verified vestment, digital varmint,
cancel culture as counterfeit church discipline
with no resurrection clause, no grace written in,
no Damascus Road for the dragged,
just comment courts and hashtags tagged.

All of it rooted in that old serpent whisper:
“You will be like God,” hissed crisper,
same lie I swallowed
With a curated feed I followed,
just with better graphic design,
now in 4K, now in prime time.

But I know what it really is.

The operating room is an altar in disguise,
sanctuary sterilized, sacrifice in scrubs’ eyes.

That metal table?
Brazen altar on wheels, mobile and fatal.
Those blue drapes?
DIY temple veil in sterile shapes,
about to be drawn
between glory and bone dust, dusk and dawn.

Anesthesia fog curls like incense,
slow swirl, sleep sense,
mask pressed to my face
like a new covenant covering in this place,
breath about to bow,
body about to say, “I’m not in charge now.”

Double hip replacement:
two Jabbok touches in one arrangement,
prequels and sequels meeting in my pelvis,
origin story and reboot, same service.

God ghostwrites through the surgeon’s hands,
But the Wrestler keeps the choreography plans,
calling every cut and suture,
Producer of my future.

Bethesda; Thirty-eight years benched by the fountain plaza,
sidelined by bad theology and better excuses,
Superstition, scripts, and spiritual abuses.
Christ doesn’t hand him a productivity plan,
a planner, a program, a brand;
He just says, “Get up,”
and suddenly the mat is a memoir, not a lock-up,
testimony taped to the floor,
old prison turned open door.

Even Christ;
ligaments lacerated, pain precise,
nerves lit like Pentecost in flesh,
side split open like a veil, torn mesh,
hands nailed into permanent openness,
pierced palms preaching endless closeness.
The only perfect body chose to be pierced,
took the full jump scare of death, unrehearsed,
so our horror arc could twist into hope,
credits cut by an empty slope of stone rolled away,
grave turned doorway, night turned day.

Pride still whispers,

“Protect your peace,”
“Cut off anyone who drains you,” sublime lines,
“God helps those who help themselves,”
Bible verses spliced over self-help shelves,
self-worship content with a Christian soundtrack,
Kingdom talk with a me-first contract.

But the canon counters:
exile’s return, prodigal founders,
Babylonian burnout giving way to Zion homecoming,
field-stained sons stunned by running,
field-stained prodigals collapsing into embraces
they didn’t budget for, no “in case this” spaces,
no cancellation, just covenant restoration,
unfollowed, unforsaken, un-damnation.

Tomorrow, anesthesia will veil the pain, yeah,
but it’ll also murder the illusion, lay it bare,
that I’m the surgeon of my own salvation,
self-savior with a self-care nation.

They’ll tell me, “Count backwards from ten,”
and I’ll step off the cliff between now and then,
between consciousness and trust,
free-falling into mercy, I can’t micromanage or adjust.

No vision board.
No five-step plan, no life hack cord.
Just a Carpenter, I can’t see
and a table that feels way too much like Calvary.

If you’re anything like me and you are,

because “broken” is the base-model decree.
You can already feel your own limps
under your designer denim’s stitched attempts:

the addiction you call “habit,”
pet sin, domesticated rabbit,
the burnout you brag about as grind culture trophies,
charred edges worn as holy,
the secret browser tabs you baptize as “stress relief,”
steam for the soul, private thief,
the late-night bargains
with a God you pretend you don’t need in your margins.

Maybe my double-hip replacement
is just a loud, literal parable in the pavement
of what’s already going down in you:

bones of self-rule being cut away,
false joints of self-justification unscrewed day by day,
new sockets of surrender set in place
by a Carpenter who knows His way around nails and grace.

This is what the hips are hearing
under the hospital gown, God-engineering:
He’s breaking and remaking me
So I’ll finally believe, finally see
That weakness isn’t a glitch,
It’s His chosen interface switch,
His favorite operating system,
broken-body-based wisdom.

But I know this:

I’ll be a small, limping exegesis
of a much larger thesis,
a living footnote to a holy thesis text:

that we are dust,
that we are dearly loved,
that we are not our own healers,
that our strength is secondhand, His firsthand dealers,

and that the strongest thing
in the universe, King of kings,

once hung limp on a cross, nailed and flung,

so every broken body,
every secret limp,
Every culture drunk on autonomy’s blimp

could dare to say,

“I wrestle with God—
and somehow,
God still stays.”