I Met God This Morning.
He Was Sitting At A Bus Stop. I Sat Down Beside Him. I Was Convinced He Was Was Part Of Some Devine Intervention, Thinking If He Could Find Silence So Close To The Street, He'd Finally Be Able To Say He'd Seen A Miracle.

But I Wasn't So Sure i Had Seen Anything  Because I Wasn't Raised On A Diet Of Bread And Wine, Oh Excuse Me, Body And Blood, Wasn't Cannibalized By The Holy Spirt. Now Don't Get Me Wrong, I'm Not The Sanctimonious Sacrilegious Type. But I've Placed My Hand,  To Enough HeartBeats To Know We're Placed Here For A Reason.

And Then I Met Him Again, In A Convenience Store On The Corner Of Locust. He Kissed The Palm Of My Hand, And Told Me To Pray More Often.

But I Wasn't Prone To Midnight Awakenings, My Tongue Didn't Speak The Same Language The Almighty Savior Did. Everyone Called Him Father, But I Was Told We Were Better Off Without Daddy Around. Hadn't Learned The Right Hymns, My Lungs Not Strong Enough To Hold A Breath Deep Enough For The Two Of Us.

And Then I Saw Him Again. Working A 100 Hour Week, On No Sleep. This Time He Was A Single Mother Of Three, Whose Hands Had Stitched More Wounds Then They Could Care To Count. They Didn't Call It An Emergency Room, For Nothing. Two Hundred Thousand Dollars In Debt Over School Loans, And Still Had The Capacity To Smile. Thats How I Knew It Was Him.

I Wasn't Baptized In Anything Except For Maybe Hell Fire And Brimstone, Seven Shades Of Sin, Out Of Wedlock, With No Shot Gun Wedding Procession. I Didn't Have A Pastor To Preach Me Into Submission. Wasn't Thumbing Any Bibles, No Prequel To My Older Than New Testament. They Called It Faith, But I Wasn't Prepared To Walk Down Any Pitch Black Hallways In Hopes Of A Light Switch.

And Then We, He And I, Crossed Paths, For What Seemed Like Should Have Been The Last Time, He Was Quiet And Collected This Time. Made Weak From His Seventh Round Of Chemotherapy. His Body Was Decaying Around Him. His Spirt Was Practically Screaming To Be Let Out Of The Cage That Was His Ribs. He Passed Me A Note, & All It Said Was “I'll Remember You.”

No One Ever Fed Me A Concoction Of Deity, And Diet.  Religion Wasn't A Silver Spoon In My Mouth. Afterlife Sounded Like A Bad Daytime Soap Opera.

But I Know The Creator. She Left Hearts On Notes In New York City Subway Stations. She Tattooed Your Name Onto The Bottom Of Her Foot, So Wherever They Took Her, You'd Be There Too. She Wore Her Heart On Her Sleeve, And Thats Why She Forgot It In So Many Places. She Was Obsessed With Shorelines, And Sunshine. And Shes Convinced We're All Natural Disasters, Happening Naturally, Falling Into Each Other, Against One Another, Like Dry Lightening Storms, Recklessly Stupid, And Always Too Young.

I Know God.

He Was Holding The Umbrella, And Told Me That No One Can Tell The Difference Between Tears And Rain Drops Anyway. He Was There The Day I Almost Drowned, He Pulled Me Out Of The Lake, And Held My Hand Until My Mother Came.

So Maybe I Wasn't The Church Pew Type, Hadn't Spent Hours At Sunday Service, Passing Around Empty Collection Plates, While Plates Else Where In The World Sat Empty. Didn't Know Scripture Like The Back Of My Hand, Two Freckles, Like Constellations, And Five Knuckles Hungry To Be Broken,

But I Know God.
I Know Him Like An Old Friend.  
He Kisses  My Forehead, When The Monsters Inside The Contours Of My Skull Got Too Loud.
He Holds My Skeleton, In The Early Hours Of The Morning, When I Was Desperate To Leave It Behind.

I Think Some People Might Have Called All Of These A Religious Experience.

But All I Know Is He Was There When I Was Born.
In The Room.
And I Swear His Voice Was The First One I Heard.

I Am The New Age Villain. No Masked Maccasurer, I Carry My Blades On The Inside.

More Terrifying Than Any Clown, Or Ghost Faced Monster With A Butcher Knife. I Am The Teenage Girl With Daddy Issues.

I Will Swallow Your Sons Whole. I Will Pull Them Under The Covers Until All They Can See Is Black And Blue. I Will Carve My Name Above Their Still Beating Heart, And Turn Them Ugly. I Am Their First And Last Love, Wrapped Up In Old Christmas Bows That My Mother Could Never Bring Herself To Get Rid Of.

With A Tongue Piercing And A Bad Tattoo Of A Rose On My Ankle, I've Got Problems With My Identity, Seems To Me I've Lost It On The Assembly Line Of  You What You're Supposed To See On  MTV , I've  Never Been Given Anything To Really Stand For.

So This Means I Fall In Love Easily.

I Fall Into Bed Easily, Between Layers Of Needing To Be Needed, And A Bottomless Appetite For Hands Across My Flesh. Bruises Make It That More Much Worth The While, Because Hours Later The Marks Will Still Be There To Remind Me Of Just How Badly You Never Wanted To Let Me Go.

He Places His Palm To My Chest, Mine To His, Says "Baby We're Making Love." But How Do You Make Love When You Hate Yourself?

I Have Learned The Hard Way That Your Mother Doesn't Want You To Bring Girls Like Me To Christmas Dinners. I've Felt My Stomach Curl Up Around My Insides, Chewing Me Apart, From The Inside Out, I Am Empty.

So I Beg Them To Fill Me.
Pour Promise Between My Sheets, And Breathe Into Me. I Am Broken.

I Know You're All Afraid Of Me, And Thats Why You Hate Me. I've Seen The Sneer Across Your Lips, Spark Starving And Growling. You Want To See Me Fail. You Probably Don't Know How Often I Cry Myself To Sleep At Night. I Was Bred, Not Built, I Am Human Too. But So Much Less Real Than You, Because This Hollowness Is Like A New Anesthetic.

But Like Every Good Comic, The Villain Was Not Always The Villain. Some Sick And Twisted Past Has Ripped Him Apart At The Seams, Left Him Begging Desperate, Lonely And Fragile, Chasing Down The Kind Of Sweet Revenge That Rots Your Teeth.

I Wasn't Always This Way. I Was Delivered Into The Mouth Of Temptation, And Damn Did The Bite Hurt.

Like Any Good Story, It Had A Begging Middle, And End, But Not Necessarily In That Order, Because My Beginning Was My Mothers End, And My Father's Story Seemed To Happen Without My Existence. Without My Permission

Because He Walked Out. Like Backlit Silhouette Of Shadows Against My Bedroom Walls, He Was Always Leaving In My Dreams.

He Met A Girl With A College Degree, Called Her 'Babydoll' And 'Lover', And She Gave Him The Gift Of Three Sons, Who Search For The Thread Of Meaning In Their Father's Speech When He Kisses The Tops Of Their Heads At Night.

He Made This Way. He Tore Our The Seems Of My Storybook And Left Me Screaming In My Sleep. This Lost And Angry Abandonment Couldn't Rest Any Longer, I Now How Streets To Chase Away And Hours To Destroy, And This Would Be The Time For Our Rib cages to Meet, In Hot Heat, And Spark Into Something Bigger Than Me,
So Yes, Call Me Your Villain.

Because Like A Villain, I Am Chasing A Revenge Deep Into Myself, Down Highways Called Veins, Where I Once Wrote The  Word 'Happiness' In Blue Ink For An Older Me To Find Someday. I Am Waiting For A Redemption To Thread Its Fingers Into My Hair, And Tell Me I'm Literally Worth Fighting For. I Am Exhausted, Because I've Got Blooded Knuckles, And Broken Battle Hymns.

The Only Hero I'm Fighting Is Myself.