lithium
AVa 12:15
wanting is disgusting
i promise you i wanted to be anything for you
i wanted to be your prophet
i wanted to swallow your ammunition
i want
to feel
the heat of
your lithium breath
static—
chasing after you in the parking garage
my temperature rose and
it felt like
the closest
i will ever
be to heaven
i promise you im beyond this
but
i swear i feel so ******* electric
i am the corrupted woman
because
i fall short of what the church asks of me
i am the bruise in your purity
because
i wanted you to take off my
—1 timothy 2:8–10 branded underwire bra
and let the pressure of your body on top of mine
crack my ribcage
like a blown fuse
i wanted you to pull the trigger
i’ve already drowned in holy water
and it burned my circuits,
the smell it made was putrid
and my body became hazardous
pull it
until every last wire in my heart
frayed and
you have to trace the fault to an open in the main line
the disgusting woman i am,
480 volts replacing the blood
that should circulate from head to toe
make me sin
i spend my sunday mornings in the lab
and
some
days
i want to crawl out from under the door
and put down the cold steel instruments
used as an attempt to rewire myself
my warning label reads timothy 6:20
lowercase t because i never thought of him
worthy enough to be considered a name,
a proper noun for what never was
the writing speaks timothy 6:20
“timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care.
turn away from godless chatter
and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge”
my warning label condemns timothy the true son of faith
because i am the daughter of science
but my father is gods child
and i crafted a new generation
that defies slavery to the teachings of the generations before me
i had a hard time getting along with paul
the real creature of lust
who can’t keep his hands to himself and
if you read my user manual my new testament
is written on the front pages
with the first letter of my Name, Capitalized, recognized as a Noun
i wanted to be eve before the forbidden hunger—
the appetite that breaks saints
when i spent my last sundays
with the congregation
i wore the same bra under my blouse
with the timothy label
that read, “women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing
. . . with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for g-od.”
bodies colonized by catholicism
the new status quo
that is woman exclusive
i tried to memorize the catholic prayers but
i zoned out retracing the article i read the night before
where pope francis accuses Chilean church ****** abuse Victims of slander
the article read
“francis reopened the wounds of the scandal in 2015
when he named barros, a protege of karadima, as bishop of the southern diocese of Osorno.
karadima’s victims say barros knew of the abuse, having seen it, but did nothing.
barros has denied the allegations.”
the pope speaks “The day they bring me proof against bishop barros,
I’ll speak,” francis said.
“There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”
i tried to burn their incense
because i thought it couldnt hurt as much
but i couldn’t take the pressure
of the smoke filling up my lungs
there was a time where us non believing
young lovers
stopped inside a church in the mall
to attend a shorter service
and i think i cried the whole time
before the end of what once was
i think that when our hands
met for the first time
you taught me God
the first person to love
unconditionally without
asking for more
i learned that resurrection
was not in the palms of a higher being
but that of the engineer,
who was truly adam
the perfect image not of god,
but one of devotion to his creation,
and the story of adam and eve not defined as tragic
but a blessing of chaos and order
the service was interrupted
with my daydreams of other versions of us
building civilizations and citadels
from the ruins found by
astrophysicists on mars
where you are allowed to be adam and eve
and eat without shame
i thought that shame
of being human could be shed
in the hands of a beautiful girl
with a utility knife
surrendering it to adam’s grasp
though he was never built for it
he is my religion
Jan 10
Jan 10, 2026 at 1:09 PM UTC