Come and See

A dialogue-style prose poem exploring the raw questions we would ask Jesus—and the answers He gives.

-By Taylor O’Lynn

Me: Where were you? Where the hell were you when my world fell apart? Do you even care? Or are you just watching from your pedestal while people suffer? Babies die, mothers scream, men become monsters. And you? You do nothing. Tell me why I should believe in a God like that.

Jesus: Your anger is righteous. The world is cruel, and your heart knows it shouldn’t be this way. I know your pain, daughter, I feel it, too. But do you want answers, or just someone to blame?

Me: Both. If you could heal lepers with a touch, why not the whole world?

Jesus: Because healing isn’t just about flesh, it’s about hearts and minds. And most people would rather limp with what they know than walk in what they don’t understand.

Me: That’s not fair. Kids don’t ask for cancer. Women don’t ask for assault.

Jesus: No, they don’t. How much more do you think it breaks my heart for my children to suffer? This world is broken, and you feel it, don’t you? It groans under the weight of its own rebellion. The enemy brought death, but I bring life. And still, the world turns away.

Me: So you just watch? While children cry themselves to sleep? While the innocent suffer? While the wicked go free? Why don’t you fix it?

Jesus: I see it all. Every tear. Every injustice. But make no mistake. I don’t just watch. I became death, bled, and broke so that suffering would not have the final word. But people love the dark because it hides them. Would you really want me to ‘fix’ everything if it meant exposing everything? Even what’s inside you?

Me: That’s different. I’m not a murderer, I’m not—

Jesus: But you have turned away when you should have stepped in. You have cursed men made in my image and let bitterness nest in your heart. You rage against the evil you see, but what about the evil that lives quietly in you? No man is righteous.

Me: Then why even the animals? Why were they hunting, surviving, fighting to live before human sin ever entered the picture? Why must creation suffer for something it never chose?

Jesus: Because it wasn’t suffering—it was design. Before the fall, the lion hunted, the deer fled, the fish swam against the current not in fear, but in rhythm. There was no tragedy, only movement, only life. Death, as you know it, did not exist. There was no separation, no loss. But when sin entered, corruption followed. And what was once design became death. Now even the earth cries, waiting to be made whole again. One day, I will restore it all. But I wait because I am patient, and there are still many more to come home.

Me: That’s not enough. I still don’t get why suffering has to happen at all.

Jesus: Because you think this life is all there is. But I told you—in this world, you will have trouble. Yet I also said, take heart, for I have overcome the world.

Me: So we just suffer and hope it means something?

Jesus: No. You suffer with me, and it is changed. Pain without me is just pain. Pain with me is the soil where joy takes root. Without me, suffering is just suffering. With me, it becomes the doorway to something greater.

Me: And what if I can’t believe that?

Jesus: Then walk with me until you can.

Me: Why? How can I trust you? I don’t even know you.

Jesus: Then know me. Seek me. My word is with you, and it is alive.

Me: How do I know that it’s real? That you are real?

Jesus: Even now, your heart is stirring. Even now, you wonder. But you are waiting for proof when it’s proof that waits for you. Would you expect a child to grasp the mind of a scholar? Then why assume human logic could contain the reasoning of an infinite God? You do not have to understand me fully to trust me completely.

Me: But I want my life. I want control. I want to do things my way, to have what I want, when I want. I want to feel good, to be free, to not have to question everything. But… I'm so tired. Something has to change.

Jesus: You hold so tightly to what you cannot keep, afraid to lose what has already been slipping through your fingers. But what if surrender isn’t loss at all? What if it’s where life begins? If you seek me and find I am not who I say, then walk away. But if you seek me and find that I am, will you still?

Me: But what if you are who you say? What if I’ve been running from the only thing that could ever make me whole?

Jesus: Then stop waiting. Stop hesitating at the door when I’ve already opened it for you.

Me: I'm scared. What if I can't do it? What if I let go, and there's nothing there to catch me? What if I walk through that door and everything I know crumbles? What if I surrender and lose myself?

Jesus: Then you will finally find yourself. You were never meant to carry all of this alone. I will not snuff out a flickering wick. I will not break a bruised reed. I do not promise that the road will be easy. I promise that I will walk it with you. I have always been here, even when you couldn’t see me. You don’t have to understand everything to take the first step.

Me: But I don’t know the way.

Jesus: Then let me lead you.

Me: What if I’m not strong enough?

Jesus: Then lean on me.

Me: What if I still have doubts?

Jesus: Then bring them with you.

Me: …

Jesus: Come and see.

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Called Higher

A poem about craving the high, drowning in the low, and being raised to new life

by Taylor O’Lynn

When I used to smoke weed
I think I craved the feeling
of fire in my chest to remind
me what it felt like to be alive

But no one’s ever died from pot
maybe not
but tell that to the part of me
that never lived without it.

Cozy – Smoked out
pass out on the couch
3 bowls deep of reeces cereal
watching rereuns, watching time,
watching my life like
smoke from my lips

It’s all natural
It helps me sleep
No need to count sheep
Roll up the sheet
God made it, it’s fine
I’ve done it a long time
There’s no way I’ll ever put it down

Feel uneasy?
Maybe sort of queasy?
We could fix it with a breezy.
Roll it up, lick it – sleazy
Doesn’t matter if you’re wheezy
Give it just a minute, we’ll get some mac n cheesy

Now I feel a little lazy
my brain’s a little hazy
thoughts moving slow but
the voices screaming crazy
maybe need another blazy
just to keep the demons quiet.

When I used to smoke weed,
The lies crept in through my ears
settled in my throat
let me choke
on the sound of darkness

You’re not worth it
the world’s better off if
Hop in the car real quick,
find a short road, the gas – hit
the blunt, the pedal. accelerate

but, it wasn’t like that all the time
no, not when I was high
That’s how I felt alive
it was once I was deprived that
I ran to find the light
but I was battling the lies
clouded up my eyes
I was blind,
braille bruised demise
sleepwalking to my grave
with my hands tied
Until He pried them open
Woke up to the prize

When I tell people that I don’t smoke weed anymore
They don’t try to convince me that I should
But they start to defend why they do
As if my mere proclaim to abstain
Pokes at their conviction begging for rebuttal

I’m not here to argue but
I know that it’s not true
That our God didn’t call you
to roll up the plants He made to
inhale or impale
your lungs into a sanctuary
the heart to the altar
my mind to be altered

He never told me to escape
instead of endure
He never told me to numb what
He came to Heal
He revealed
His messages concealed until
I turned it over in kind
“Be alert and of sober mind.
Your enemy the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.”

In this modest hour
The world that we stand
Cursed is the land
That tries to knock us down
But tell me, how
are we supposed to be
equipped to see
our destiny
when I spend all
of my days asleep?
How am I supposed to stand
when I know my knees are weak?
How am I supposed to fight
when I keep my sword sheathed?
where can I find the key
the one that’s meant to set me free?

Look –

We live in a system
that recoils from the kingdom
man made religion
tryna take away my freedom
what’ll finally happen when I can’t play the victim
look upon the wisdom

why would a man make
what a man can’t take
it’s staring at your face
too much self-control
too much grace
not enough my pace
not enough my taste
I thought we were talking about weed
Why are you jumping my case

See –

I called it peace,
but peace don’t sit on your chest in the middle of the night
I called it medicine,
but medicine don’t make you crave the sickness.

Called it freedom,
but why’d I fiend when the jar ran dry?
Called it healing,
but I was just too high to hear my own cries.

Kept my Bible shut,
kept my prayers brief,
kept my spirit dim,
so I could find quick relief.

But relief ain't the same as sanctity,
and paralysis ain't the same as peace.
I was never free—
I was just too numb to feel the leash.

Chained – don’t be fazed
All the grass I’ve grazed
I was dazed, crazed, enslaved
Until mercy called, I was saved
Like Lazarus raised
my death – erased
my sin – displaced
my mess and pain
He embraced
I once blazed, lost in haze,
now I stand, in awe – amazed

Sensuality and the Sands of Sin

A poem about sensuality, insecurity, and the worth I built on shifting sand until the Savior pulled me out. - By Taylor O’Lynn

How easy it was to suck
in my gut, poke out my chest,
put a sway in my step
wearing a pair of tight pants.

Unspoken invitation, a trap
no one would call out
until they fell in.
Because then, it was their fault.

How easy it was to strengthen my ego
with the crank of necks
attached to the heads of married men
my prize was when their eyes flicker sideways
to let my lips curl – I’ll keep your secret

the ring on their finger
sounded more like a challenge than a vow
a test of my wiles, my power.
I couldn’t deny the rush
drunk on their gaze, a lush.
I wanted to make them linger

I dipped into the open door of my closet
like a pool of promiscuous possibilities
Sifting through deep V necks, lace
rimmed skirts, and thigh high boots.
Conceptualizing the competition
I had to be more forkable than them
more edible, tasty to the tongue
enticing to the flesh

praying men would stumble
How normal it felt
to hate other women who must
share the same hunger, the lust
Who must secretly
think the same of me -
thus, they became my enemy.
Thus, I became theirs.

The man on my arm –
I held him close like a trophy,
and yet studied him like a suspect.

Searching followed lists
Tapping tiny bubbles with blonde hair
Swiping to the year 2014
hunting for his name in her likes,
counting interactions, cataloging sins,
prosecutor, judge, executioner,
and yet—
I was the one on trial.

Stuck in the loop of my own brain,
knowing I was insane,
knowing I was in pain,
knowing I was losing,
screaming out His name—
but not knowing who He was.

Not yet.

I saw the world as a game
Toy and string
cat and mouse
a glance, a nod, a taste,
points in my favor.
Validation, validation, validation.
I ate it up

And yet, on the drive home,
hand in his, upper thighs still exposed,
I told myself it was a compliment –
every lingering glance, every turned head,
was proof that he had won.

Didn’t it make him proud,
to have a woman other men wanted?
Wasn’t it validation for him, too?

But beyond the exterior,
as the tires turned, so did my thoughts
If his gaze, drifting, settling on another—
the way theirs settled on me,
the way I needed them to see me—
knowing what they’d do with me…

It carved through me,
split me open,
hollowed me out.

My worth built on their gaze,
My identity threaded through their hunger,
My existence wrapped in the hands of men
who didn’t even know my name.

I wasn’t afraid of losing him.
but afraid of him seeing what I already knew—
that I was nothing more
than the hips and the lips ,
skin and bone,
a body meant for consumption.

That I was only worth as much as I was wanted.
That I had built my foundation
on the shifting sands of sensuality,
and the tide was pulling it away.

I called out to a God I did not yet know.
He heard me—
but He let me sink deeper,
let me feel the weight of the wreckage,
let me drown in the very sands
I had built my life upon.

Before He reached down,
before He pulled me out,
before He became the foundation
and showed me how to build the house…

Not yet.

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