Reverse engineering
Looking back and forth
What is my present and what is my past?
What does it all say about where I’m headed?
Reeled in at the eye from young imagination
Impressions of perversion in gradual fashion
Whispers of this lust of vain infatuation
Erosions of innocence predicated upon twisted appetites of passion
What is natural when on one hand it’s just a matter of desire
But on the other context is everything when sex is either a controlled flame or a wild fire
Images of suggestive ideas and the demons that puppeteer
Progressive lusts like snakes slithering in the mind through visual doses
When pleasures instigate shameful behaviors and fear
Lost in this waking sedation of perpetual hypnosis
How do I trace it all from the garden of the forbidden or the roots of a more present seed
As I gorge upon sickening appetites of a lascivious indulgence that I feed
Suggestions of deeper cuts that you don’t really want to see
When scars make up the madness of my own hypocrisy…
(As I mention in my biography I write what's real to me at any given moment and relate to the human condition of our fallen nature of the flesh while yearning to exalt the truer nature of what the bible says about who I really am in Christ.
Cloven as a stage name is an expression of this duality in my nature that illustrates the dichotomy of the enmity of the nature of the flesh versus a born again spirit. I was raised in the church accustomed to more charismatic/Pentecostal spiritual upbringing without all the legalism of religious traditional mindsets that deviate from the heart and nature of God's word understood through the lens of grace and His holy nature untethered to our own ideas about things.
What this poem expresses more specifically however is the reality of the way porn addiction has been a life long struggle for me that has led me to perverted fantasies I believe are actually instigated by unseen spiritual oppression of demonic influence even a Christian can open themselves up to by dabbling in what many don't recognize as how damaging it can actually be.
Sexual immorality has been responsible for so much heartache in many ways, whether it's unfaithfulness in marriage, premature and unplanned pregnancy/abortion, or even twisted desires contrived of fractures in a sense of ones identity.
It may not be the most popular point of view from the standpoint of a writer that perhaps goes against the trend of what tends to be a more liberal mindset domineered art form, but people insist on their sexual appetites as the foundation of their identity but I think the truth is we all are but versions of ourselves relative to our own understanding and lacking revelation of who we truly are.
Even as a Christian that believes in my identity in Christ by grace through faith, I've still struggled with lust at times and it carries with it a sense of identity inconsistent with who I was created to be. Many who identify with alternative sexual appetites make the claim, "I was born this way" to which I would respond we were all born with desires that are ungodly given our fleshly nature and even spiritual deadness until we awaken to what Christ has come to do in our lives when we place our faith in Him.
We are all sinful, we were born this way, the reality of salvation and divine rebirth through Christ Jesus is that we must be reborn in Him and as we fellowship with the Holy Spirit we are reborn into a new way of being that transforms our desires and behaviors.
It's not to say we don't still at times battle in the nature of our flesh that may crave ultimately unfulfilling things, but as we live from a place of fellowship with Him our sinful ways become disenchanted and easier to resist as we find true joy in who He intends us to be.)