Stop Beating

(This is a slow to fast beat piece)


Still alive…

Still my heart is beating; even though there are times when I wish it would just stop!

Stop beating… I tell my heart 

Stop beating, I want to be with my God

Stop beating, help me stop hurting 

Stop beating, help me stop crying

Stop beating, so there’s no pain- no more feeling

Only numbness left behind

The sleep of peace is all I ask for

Did you hear me, old foolish heart of mine?

Stop beating, I say to you my ruthless heart; don’t you see I’m tired of crying out

Stop beating you blood-thirsty heart surrounded by vessels and walls of tissue to protect you from the harms and pains this body endures

Stop beating, I tell this wicked heart of mine who disobeys, strays away, grows rebellious and justifies itself with the “I-am-in-control-of-this-body”…

Knowing if it wasn’t for its pumping-thumping-pounding… this body would crash and cave in

Stop beating, I tell this crazy heart of mine who wants to disobey my voice and do not my will, but God’s

Stop beating, so I could lay my head and never wake to the light of a new day

Stop beating, so I don’t have to go through the daily motions of where I’ve been, where I am headed and what the future brings

Collapse, you selfish heart!

Thinking you’re in control of my life

Thinking you’re going to keep me alive...
When all I want to do is forsake this skin and die!

Why should I live in a world that is out of control?

Suffering the pains of past mistakes and failures

Fighting the could’ve, should’ve battles

This monster of a heart grows in me like Goliath, who will not quit but fight

Thinking in the end, he will win the war

You see just like Goliath you’ll be defeated, in the end you’ll die

 I can’t wait for that day when you’re hit against the head and fall to your destruction

But you tell me that time is on your side…That the moment hasn’t come for you to stop pounding

That the choice is not yours
You have a higher Master who started your ticking and gave you a time to stop

You say He told you not to quit or stop breathing even if I pleaded you to stop

Even if you heard my cries, like an echo carried through pulses of veins, screaming out …

I beg you to stop! For I can’t bear the pain

I beg you stop! For I can’t see in darkness

I beg you…please stop! There’s nothing to live for

Stop beating! I command you… let me go in peace

Stop beating … let me rest from the troubles of this world

Don’t you know? My time is up; this life is much too long

Please let me go be with my God

If you should hear such a cry, oh convoluted heart of mine

Why don’t we make a bargain and you just let me die!

But your response is not to my surprise

You tell me that Your Master sends messages traveling through my veins

It’s the blood you tell me… It’s His blood that runs to me…

Roaming through your body, going straight to what you call me…heart

You see I cannot listen, even in your begging; for there are things

you must endure, in spite of all the pain

It’s through much suffering and tears that you come close to God

So don’t ask me to stop beating, for HE commands me to remember that specific time

When He made you, He hovered over me and whispered a set date and time

When I was to stop ticking and thumping and pumping the blood of the One who chose to die…

Not from all your suffering but because He himself became the Bruised

Through grief, He wrapped himself in the entire affliction and oppression of the world

and took it to his death so that you may now continue living

You see, I cannot stop beating because I hold in memory your time just like I held His time of death

But you and I both know that He was special so I had to start pumping up again

And if I were to tell you this, said the heart to me, you’d probably think it crazy

I am only the pump that beats in the cavity of your chest and keeps your physical body alive

The real element here, holding the seat to your emotions…the root of all your sorrows;

Your pain, anger and frustration; your hurt, misery, and tears… is actually the Mind!

Where all of your memories remain…the thing that haunts you and feeds you fear

So if you’re looking for someone to blame or a solution to your problem

don’t order me to stop beating but give command to your mind to stop thinking!

For the heart of man is deceiving, who can know it says the Lord

Think how it can be possible for the heart to be deceiving when it doesn’t have a brain of its own 

So I say again… speak to your mind and tell it to die from all the past pains you’ve endured

so that we may both live together and do the work of the Lord…

You see, you are not finished yet! I keep hearing God say to you

For when your destiny is complete…your heart and mind will know the truth

To stop ticking like a clock that has served its purpose and lived the span of its lifetime

They’ll both say to you … No more!

The hands of the clock will no longer tell time, they will never give the hour passed your counted days, weeks, months or years to come… for your time on Earth has ended

But until that time arrives and God, Himself gives word

Learn to live … and please sing me a new song, for I am sick of your request

Tell me that you are happy and full of greater joy… smile at me on this day and the next

Say I, your Heart to thee…for I have not stopped beating… like you once ordered me!

Copyright © 2003 Ellie Kings

Note: This Spoken Word piece birthed out from the darkness I spoke of in my last post.  Please excuse grammatical errors.  It’s merely for the benefit of my performance. Also, Blogger gave me difficulties getting it to look the way it should.

Art by Madalina Iordache