See, we hold secret meetings between our darknesses and hopes;
cry in heaves in our cars after midnight,
awake early to drink of a bitter cup:
coffee and whatever it accompanies,
these things, they keep my company,
cold tiles, cigarettes,
scriptures, fleas, and bedsheets.
I spread- divulge cavernous wants, these
tiny comforts, the tiredest songs,
the ones I still believe in.
I was told to turn my spirit to the Lord.
*** seemed like the closest metaphor.
I was told that making love was how you sinned:
to turn my soul to see the God inside me,
to turn my face to watch a man inside me--
they bear a heavy semblance.
But this is infinitely more than bone of bone and flesh of flesh,
this is the spirit of the ghosts that carve in rivers through my chest,
formless and void
like universe before language.
This God,
he hovered over my
smallest waters,
whispered requests that broke out in shouts,
and his words, not so different
than those of men who I have been with:
"Come before me. Let me come into you."
I originally wrote this piece when I was practicing the religion I grew up in. I revised it and, having let go of those traditional values and practices, feel it kind of runs up against itself. Pretty rough, pretty far from my usual structure, and pretty much written to be read aloud.