Why you choose to welcome it into your home
broken and wilted and hard as a stone
there'll be a place for you next to the throne
because you believed that your life's not your own
One day when we all drifted away
off to find love in a whole other place
You'll be welcomed through mercy and grace
into His home where He prepared your place
because when He knocked you opened your gates...

snow

self portrait at thirty years old and i’m drinking myself into my mother. the mirrors have forgotten my image. i do terrible things in front of them. i’m not above that. terrible things. i killed my mother. banished her. stole her body. i replaced my memory of her with replicas of me. it was surgical. it was an extraction. the hurt was sublime. i stand in front of a mirror with a cranberry juice and *****. i stick out my tongue. i put on mascara. i drink. i was not a good daughter

snow

self portrait at thirty years old and i’m bleeding. this means my mind is on fire. this means my body is abstractly dark. this means i dream of katharsis. a letting of pain. heaven, but heaven is a bathtub where i can open my veins. where i can empty myself of the beetles, of the leeches, of the spiders. of all the tiny monsters with their tentacles and their claws. i want them out. a body can’t hold

snow

i want to tell you a story but the whole story is too long. i can gloss over it. i can pick a spot. six years old, sunday school bathroom. i was hiding, only i’m not great at that. the sunday school teacher found me and took me back to the classroom. the other kids were singing. the sunday school teacher stood in front of windows so yellow with sky and held up her hands. she talked about jesus. she said jesus could save us. idk. i already knew about danger. i already knew about wanting to be saved. the sunday school teacher asked if we all loved jesus, and we all said yes. then the sunday school teacher called on each kid and asked them if jesus could live in their hearts. and i got real scared. i got numb. i got static. i didn’t want jesus to do that. i thought it was permanent. i thought it was a *******. i thought it would burn me like a brand. i thought, if i did this, i could have no other. and what if i wanted another. what if another could save me better. what if jesus hurt all the time and i couldn’t give him back. so i said no. i didn’t want jesus in my heart. and everybody was disappointed. and i think about it every day. what was my little soul thinking. what was my little soul wanting. waiting for. is it out there. can i have it now

shameless, this want. like a hickey. god tells me to knock it off. snaps their gum really loud. i want a piece but i'm shy. there was a moth but now it's a corpse. i draw circles around its body with chalk. they don't live that long, i tell god. some of them don't even have mouths. seems ****** up, doesn't it? god pretends not to be surprised by this. while i'm not looking god makes a moth out of gum. it has no mouth. it makes me cry.

god
the
wolf
of
this
wind
must
be
lonely

i
keychain
bible
pinky
ring

ii
the softest
you’ve
ever been
touched

rockland
boatman
avalanche
-
weird
mythos

the palm
of a hand
-
does heaven
have a map

i forget
-
most of the magic
i didn’t make

all of the magic
i did

god says they found something cool. a graveyard full of all my regrets. they ask if i want to go. i don’t. sometimes i forget god is like this. is it a campground, i ask. aren’t all graveyards campgrounds, god asks. and this should seem profound, right? god of campgrounds. god of mean jokes. word of god. but it's not profound. i ask god if they were looking, but god doesn’t answer. hands me the keys to my truck and calls shotgun.

the lake hurts. the lake hurts my lake. it’s not one of my regrets. i don’t know what to call the water place inside me, so i call it gothic barbie dream house. no, not its real name. yes, i spend too much time inside. i grow a tail fin. it’s beautiful, but i don’t appreciate it. complain about missing bikini bottoms. complain about sore throat. gothic barbie dream house isn’t on any maps. gothic barbie dream house has a NO DIVERS ALLOWED sign, just in case. gothic barbie dream house is a silent movie with future color. gothic barbie dream house has posters of punk ken in every room that i use to practice kissing. punk ken is going to think i’m such a good kisser. gothic barbie dream house has a room for *** toys and a room for mutilation. i spend equal time in each. not a huge fan of either. gothic barbie dream house has a bathroom; has clutter of perfume crystal, silk wing, menstrual cup. gothic barbie dream house has a kitchen, but i don’t use it. pink and purple plastic. easy bake oven and short tables. tea drinking mice eating tooth sized cakes. gothic barbie dream house has a mouse problem and so many mirrors. gothic barbie dream house has a dungeon, a disco ball and blow up sofas. menageries of giant stuffed animals. there is a demon dancing in the corner with an unlit candle. gothic barbie dream house smells like blood. gothic barbie dream house smells like water. gothic barbie dream house is full of bubbles, new fins, air hoses. this is where i realize the demon is a diver, and it hurts gothic barbie dream house to its distant river. this is where i don’t know what to say when the diver asks, does it go deeper. i tell the diver gothic barbie dream house goes on forever, but they don’t understand. it looks like a lake to them. the diver asks my name, and i say, listen. diving is dangerous. let’s have a tea party. and look. we both have fins-