sometimes, i look at dainty strong marble effigies
of the ****** mary holding her birth-bloodied son
and wonder if some loves aren't meant for everyone.

chastity-locked inside my heart, there's a woman
who wears long sundresses and lives in the little mac and cheese potluck moments;
she prays her rosary and feels the warm arms
of her traditional husband who loves her as a duty.

as for jesus, well, he's a cheap plastic figurine
she bought from ebay and stuck on the dashboard of her car;
the heat melted his feet in a crucifixion of 2020
but he still stands, wobbly and shaky and commercialised.
when she travels, she prays to him for safety.

(she doesn't travel a lot. she's happy to be stagnant and pray for still waters every morning.)

who cares about my heart, though?
who loves unconditionally and always,
and sees through the rips of cartilage and crushed aorta -
who will look and look and look
and see me? sorry, see me? sorry, see me out.

sometimes, i want to be a child again;
cradled in my mother's arms. sometimes,
i want to no longer put my dreams on hold.
sometimes, i want the world to look at me and say
"hey, pontius pilate, there's another one for martyrdom."

I’m feeling the air on the thick of my tongue,
and it’s summertime -
it’s summertime, now, and I think it’s a Sunday,
so I’m going to smoke that Cuban cigar
in the quiet, against the sunlight.

I’m going to wait until the sun comes down,
and then the light is all mine to drink in;
not one, but millions of stars share the glory.
I’m blinking it in, like this will be forever,
and there’s something in me that wonders
why I’ve waited so long to live.
Why I always let the light filter
through stained glass,
and why I believed them when they told me
that staring directly at the sun
would blind me in forgiveness.

Why does forgiveness have to hurt?

I’m wondering if I can ever forgive myself
by kissing switchblades
and licking the flames from votive candles,
or if there must be an easier way
to do all of this.
But if I cling too much to what happiness could be,
then I’ll never know how to forgive myself
for not having it sooner;
they want me to live a good life,
but I am steeped in sin
and waiting to burn.

This - this thing -
is far too much about what they want.
Far too much against
Cuban cigars and Sunday mornings
in bed, and grabbing hold of life
with fists and hair and saying
“take this, all of you,
and roll with it.”

I’m paving my own narrative,
looking at barefoot beachfront walks
like altars, and I know -
I ate the fruit, and now I know,
that a long line of commercialism
will fool you into thinking
that the light at the end of the tunnel
means something.

Let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how scarred they are;
how the callouses seep
into flesh, become part of me,
rubbing circles underneath the hood
of my uvula.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how they’re only the starting point
for throwing up apples,
golden, red, green,
bitter and sweet,
all of them mine, to be choked
back into me.

So let’s talk about Mary-birds,
and the sacrifices they make
for their children,
and in doing that, let’s talk about *****
and how beautiful the sheen
of afterbirth looks in the toilet bowl,
and how often self-destruction
tastes like sacrifice on the way back up.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,
again, and the visceral scraping
against teeth,
and how much it feels like giving up
to not sit by the toilet
waiting for a sign
that this is somehow enough.

So let’s talk about being good enough,
and how I’ll never feel that way
until my knuckles mingle
with milk-white bone,
and how the rows of pews
are pearlescent,
tainted yellow,
with smoke and bile.

So let’s talk about talons,
and vultures, and everything that happens
after death, and let’s talk about
how one day the sea will swallow us whole,
and let’s talk about the belly of the beast,
and let’s talk about Jonah,
and oh - sorry - the sermon is over,
and the priest is taking confessions,
so let’s not talk
anymore.

I remember dying, Father.
I remember it like it was yesterday,
because it was,
when you told me to save them,
and I saved them,
and then they told me I was you,
and I’m confused.

I remember it well,
the pounding of nails into flesh,
tingling in my heart;
I love another,
who is not you,
but could be
given the right light,
and opportunity.

I remember the pain,
sinking across palms,
and I beg for you
not to create any more stigmata
for the fallen;
I thought you loved them.
They do not deserve this.

I remember believing in you,
unwavering faith,
and I remember having all of that
choked into my neck muscles,
spasming to gasp for air
like crucifixion, again,
and I remember you.

Father, I remember you.
Do not think for a Heavenly moment
that I can ever forget
the role you pushed me into.
I remember your burning angel-eyes
and I breathe silently at Passover
so that my presence is unknown.

I remember what I am supposed to do.
I am supposed to save them,
to save them,
isn’t that what you sent me here for?
Just another errand
on your long list of people to sacrifice,
but I am here to save them.
even if that means
using your blood for my resurrection.

We were dying of thirst,
clamouring amongst each other
to lick the spit of women
like mothers’ milk,
we cried out, begging
for resolution,
for water in the drought.

Our lives were shattered,
children screaming
for the since-dried milk
of nourishment,
women sobbing upon
small corpses.

God, we cried.

And then you came,
a gift amongst the flint;
we had long since found fire
but you taught us
how to put it out.

It ached in the milk-light
of our bones,
a flowing stream
and tablets carved
of testaments,
of commandments
that spoke
of how we were destroying
the earth,
how repentance
is simply not enough.

And god, we cried,
we cleansed our sins,
and we cried
for water,
and you brought it to us.

Legs spread,
Mother Mary holding
women close,
the only sacrament
worthy of sacrifice.
Men falling in useless battles,
and women bringing water
to the dead.

We found a stream.
We drank.

Mother Mary sunk wide,
and god, we drank.

Darling, please tell me which head you want on a platter,
and I’ll bring it to you. Don’t love him, please,
don’t love him, love me instead,
yes, I’ll decapitate myself if it means you’ll kiss my dead lips,
and please, love me until I die,
it’ll be an honour for a mouth like yours to mourn for me,
but please, don’t mourn for me.

I’m nothing in terms of you,
but I want you to remember me,
if only through the candles in the church,
from which my face burns in selfish wonder,
asking you if you’ve read my autobiography yet, and what you
thought of what I had to say,
don’t mourn for me.

Silver feels so sweet against my flesh,
so cool, like the pools of water
in which I sink myself,
waiting to drown like it’s the only thing that matters,
like all I can do is **** saltwater violently,
and I love you violently,
please, I love you,
but don’t mourn for me.

I wonder how you’ll cut my head off,
whether you’ll use a knife or a sword,
or the switchblade with dried blood that I showed you;
yes, I’m laying claim to this,
and yes, I’m begging you to use my own weapons against me,
but I’ll die anyway.
Let me have this,
but please,
don’t mourn for me.

Can I beg?
Can I ask you to **** me,
so that I can pretend it was my choice
to be lying here,
pale and emaciated,
kissing the knife against my neck,
calling you vampire,
calling you mine,
calling myself baptist, but lover,
don’t mourn for me.

I’ll call cool waters home,
I’ll think of the ocean,
and I’ll think of you,
and I’ll craft a manger from all of this dust,
because that’s all I’ll ever become
as long as you, Salome,
never mourn for me.

I love this!
Being a sacrifice,
Father, I love this!
Oh, thank you,
thank you so much
for not asking me
if it’s alright to cut open my flesh,
thank you, thank you!
It’s such a wonderful feeling,
ah! It hurts -
thank you!
God is so merciful,
perhaps I’ll get into Heaven
with this offering -
what do you mean it’s all for you?
What do you mean I’m just a commodity?
What do you mean my flesh is yours to give?

Father!
I do not want this anymore,
I do not want to be a sacrifice
if I will not reap the rewards -
god, it burns!
The knife cuts me open
like Sunday dinner;
how is this not mine?
How is my flesh not mine to own?

Father, please!
I am begging you,
ease up, stop cutting,
I’ll repent, I’ll be yours,
I’ll open myself up
if it’s what you command,
but do not let my flesh
be given to someone else.

No! Nobody will know sacrifice
like I know it,
intimately and forever -
I am not yours!
My blood is not yours to give,
but you tie me down,
and god!
God!
It hurts -
father, Father, please, it hurts.

Shuffle towards the marrow of my bones, Abraham.
Know my eyes when you burn into them.
I am your sacrifice,
but never willingly.

They said it was only prisoners’ flesh
that lions want to eat,
and I’m remembering that, when you,
named as Mary,
bear down upon me and I gasp,
pleasure-filled and psalm-sick.

Who is Daniel?
And moreover - do we care?
You tell me to stop thinking so much,
and that’s alright,
I’ll stop thinking at all
if it pleases you.

It pleases me.

Your soft lips, arching,
pounding stones for those who have never sinned,
I beg you to embalm me this way forever,
and you laugh -
you tell me that nothing is permanent.

I am crying.

The den is filled with misty tomorrows,
and yesterdays that I will have to confess,
but I cannot bring myself
to bring testament to you,
and make real the blood from your Eve-flesh,
because if it is not real,
it is not mine.

Can I deal with that?

Oh, Daniel is knocking at my door, now.
I will let him in,
and this is goodbye
to the giant of my love
that cannot swell further in my heart
for fear of aneurysm
or breaking.

He puffs out his chest and takes up space for two,
long before the temple is destroyed.
Nobody has told him ‘no’ in a long time,
and nobody has ever taught him how to be humble.
This is where he stands, tending his animals,
spitting and swearing and squaring up to the pigs,
his face ballooning in redness, all the majesty
of colour given to him alone by God.

His masculinity is ripe with each slain animal,
domesticated and reared for sacrifice to please another,
another man, for whom pride is not a virtue.
Nobody has ever taught him how to be wrong,
and so he is never wrong, right up until the moment
when the stone is in his hand and the blood is on the stone
and the brother is in the blood and the history is given to the brother.

For the whole of time, there has been the trinity,
and with four alive, it was simple maths of which brother
must be cut down. The strong must **** out the kind,
and Cain will go down fighting one day,
but not today. Today, there is a victor, and a title,
and a promise ripped from the heart of the father
that nobody will hurt him the way he hurts.

It is the stone that cycles back,
like rainwater or bad luck or the static feeling
of something going very wrong.
These men do not lie, they deceive,
and Cain was granted protection,
until his house fell down
and his body, under the rubble,
for the very first time,
knew the communion
of what it is like to lose.

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a pillar. Call it yours.

Hello, Cain. Have you heard of shared glory?
I don’t think you have; that’s okay,
neither have I, for I am the One,
and nothing can take that from me.

You wish to be this way?
I have told you;
here is perpetual stone,
you have all the tools necessary.

Necessary for what?
For legacy.
For eternity.
Baby, hold onto me.

Angel, that’s what you’ll be,
baby, darling, mine,
take the stone
like man who lies with man.

What? I have betrayed you?
You should know this.
My love is Abel,
my love is not yours to give.

Unless, of course,
you want to take it from me.
Yes, that’s it,
take the eternal stone.

This is the history you want to craft.
Violent, ******,
and completely, utterly,
yours.

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a legacy.

Hate it; call it yours.