When Judas kissed Jesus

Did he feel the cold creep of despair

Or hear the ragged breath of the future

Whispering all the reasons why

His life would never be the same?

Did Judas let the kiss carry

All the lovingly tender feelings

Even as it ripped away the life

He and his friends had known?

Or was Judas’s kiss painfully ironic

An act of love that masked

His feelings of extreme violence

Towards his mentor, teacher and friend?

Did Jesus receive that kiss

Thinking it would end everything

Or did he accept that kiss

Knowing it would begin everything else?

When Judas kisses you

And the cold creep of despair

Hangs around you in a cloud of panic

It is easy to meditate on

“Jesus didn’t make it out alive”

And internalize the pain that feels eternal

Because the difference between you and Jesus

Is that Jesus knew what was coming.