Should have
put a bullet in the brain
Should have
doused it with kerosene
and lit a match
Should have
tied a cinderblock
to the worthless wretch
and chucked it in the lake
But the most rotten things
resurface
and eat the sweetness
that you spent
two years
building
Should have left
well enough alone
instead of
leaving the coffin door
wide open
for the wickedness
to crawl back out

I am a language
I don't quite understand
So please be patient with me
And learn me
As I am learning myself

~j.m.tamis

She left me a gift bag
of coconut oil, expensive shampoo,
instant noodles, and bug spray.

Focus slips as she
presses her face to the bus window,
staring out at a town
she will never see again.

She believed the town was a prison
until I taught her
how to ride a motorbike.

Dodging ***-holes and stray dogs,
I clung for my life,
primed for purgatory-
whilst she screamed love ballads

at the top of her lungs,
believing that if she drove fast enough
she could make up for the time she had lost.

As ghosts appear
along the country roads of Kalasin,
the drumlins will be
a mere sequence of pixels

and Chinese whisper memories.
I smoke, lean on bad habits
across the fence of solitude I built

so meticulously by hand.
Another night spent drunk
under the stars – alone.
Desire spikes a fever in hindsight,

thoughts stray to her upper thighs,
blue eyes, and untouched lips.
I wonder whether reaching out

for somebody in the dark
would have been enough
to abate our bespoke
and desperate loneliness.

She left me as another moment
I let slip through my fingers.
A life-time spent

wringing my hands.

I grew up in a home
where words like "atheist" and "agnostic",
if uttered, were shoved under rugs
or place mats or quilt-work sentiments reading
       "God Bless This Home"
And so I too, would hide from those who hid
from God.

But then amongst the distaste and disregard of things
less than God,
I Became An Evangelist!
Ah, yes!
Because whose soul doesn't want to be saved
by a thirteen year old with a clever Christian
saying on his shirt that's a size too small?
But not only that, no.
I dragged my friends along with me.
We were, in fact, a regular children's crusade.

But I was a little bigot.
I pushed away those who
pushed away God,
shocked at the thought
that anyone could not believe
in what now seems
completely
unbelievable.
I even scorned the science teacher
who had the audacity to introduce
the evil of evolution.

I was on fire.

But then the Devil himself
put Kurt Vonnegut on my lap.
Yes, I accredit my loss of faith
to a crazy science fiction writer.
At least, he pushed the first domino.

And my God, I was afraid.
Afraid of feelings of distance
Afraid of questions that never seemed
to have an answer.
Afraid I was losing myself.

I struggled with the traditional questions, of course:
Why would a benevolent God send good people
to hell for not believing? Is he that insecure?
If he is omnipotent, wouldn't he know what
he was getting into when he created such sinful
little *****?
Why should we be indicted simply because we
were born?

How does He expect me to give Him my entire life?

Fast forward about four years.
I'm eating lunch with my oldest sister,
a philosophy major, no less.
She tells me how she experienced almost
the exact same thing I did.

And after an inward struggle of four years, finally I had the courage to admit my Agnosticism to myself.
I simply did not know.
How could I?

But now I'm left to deal with my friends,
and most of all my mother.

I should not feel guilty for my beliefs, or lack thereof.
I am an agnostic.
I am a humanist.

I am on fire.

For Atheists, God does not compute
And religious fervour does not suit.
Believers, on the other hand
Keep their heads down in the sand.
Both camps are certain they are right,
Faiths for which they’re willing to fight
And die.
Well maybe not the Atheists
It must be said:
They stick to logic,
Ruled by the head.

For me I’m baffled why these folk are so certain.
We won’t know The Truth ‘til the Final Curtain.
I guess an Agnostic I’ll always be,
So let’s sit down for a cuppa tea.

Paul Butters

they called me crazy
for refusing to pick flowers
for saving spiders from the kitchen
and for talking to birds rather than humans

they called me crazy
for clawing at my wrists
for eating my own words
and for tearing out my hair for allowing myself to feel

nothing ever satisfies
when you worry about the endless amount
of "they"
and "them"
and what "they" think

nothing ever satisfies
when "they" meet your demons
and "they" make a home
in your own ******* ribs