I watch your back
Glisten in the sun
Building my church
Laying a strong foundation
For my temple
It is a labor of love

I am waiting now
To teach you my gospel
Did you see my scripture
Ink saturating scrolls
So it is written
So it is done

We are still in the middle
Unfurl me
Tender fern in spring
They are singing our chorus
Beyond the hill
Playing stringed instruments
Fiddlehead
I am not god
Or angel
Figurehead

I am the woman at the well
Bow your head
Drink from my cupped hands
Communion
This is my body
This is my bread
Sit at my table
Feast as if judgement day is here
Last supper

I will wash your feet
With tenderness
With tears
With perfume and oil
There is no shame in these 4 walls
At the alter
I say my prayers of thanksgiving
That I am no longer 40 years in the desert
Burn my offering with sweet oil
As the aroma wafts into heaven
They will know
The prophecy is fulfilled
Sins atoned
Covenant not broken

We cleanse our selves
Before we enter in
Into the holy of holies
Make our evening bed
This curtain was never torn.
Not for the dark day
Not for the cross
Not for sins since the beginning of time
Not for the body in the tomb
Not for the wailing women
Not for the spirits fading in the womb
Not for the lamb

You wash my back
With holy water
I wash yours
In the Jordan
Today’s baptism renews us
This is our small kingdom
Bathed in righteousness
We are clean in the eyes of God

I have been absorbing darkness
For a long time
Painting my burning rays
Across where you could not see
Do you feel lighter
Now that you are illuminated
I was not hungry
But I have swallowed up your sins
Spit them out as blessings
For you to feast
It hurts to heal
But I will not make it
Any harder than it has to be
I am here for your journey
You will never know
The role you play in mine
I could find you
Blind and mute in the dark
I would not even struggle
I only wonder
Why you lost me to begin with
There is no grievance between us
I will seek you
Until you are whole again
I am all the broken pieces
Of anyone I have ever loved
I am all your pain and your guilt
I am your fears and bitter truth
I am the voice of reason
Telling you, you are worthy
Taking your pitiful currency
As gold
I am the temple
The offering
I am the unburdened
Go, and be light
You are free
Even of me

If my body is a temple
As those who worship
The god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob profess
Then there is blood on the walls
If it is a temple
Who is it devoted to
Who will be the sacrificial lamb

I cannot be both temple and offering

Hold up the sky and give me fire
Give up the stars that crown your head
Hold the night in your hand
Before you bestow it upon mortals

Now I am known
Brighter than ever before
Wind me around your fingers
I will undulate in crystal light
Dancing for galaxies
Far beyond our own

Your temples in this world
Unprepared for the next
Stones die
Hymns live, on my tongue
Parting ways
Syllable splitting from taste
Cleaving to particles dancing in sunlight
Equally yoked
Bearing the weight of sins, unspent
Blessings, unfelt
Dreams weaving themselves as a coat
Around a man
In slave to his own folly

Here we bow
At the foot of mountains
Gods carved in stone
Refusing to speak
Begging for water to pour forth
When you will not even wash your feet
Memory is fluid
Dry your hands
The beast rising up from water
Seven stars for each of his crowns
A crown for each of his heads

Make a way into the mountains
You will learn of sacrifice, obedience
Your steps belong to the beaten path
I ******* myself with my own hands
Drag my legs through the dust
A child's prayers are better words
Than my liar of a tongue could conjure
Does God not remember me
How will I honor him again
When his name is dry and old in my throat

My nails crack and splinter
Digging into your thigh
The crows see flesh
I see pain
Red rivers running down your leg

Your voice splits like wood
This is a prayer
When you seek God in pain
Laying your cards out in the sun
Bargaining with the maker
For an ending
When you hold only beginnings for trade
When things are well
Your prayers twiddle their thumbs
Now, the heat rises
Your pockets are empty
Not so your hands

Who will bring me before the altar
Hold the curtains back
Who will speak for me
When my words are worthless
I dare not look upon God
I know he walked with me
Footprints in the sand
A sinners mark
Gashes open, running, on my wrist
A sinners mark
Mark of the beast
I cry
Sound splitting from tangibility
Fingers clutching at empty air

Who can look upon God
Who can know him
When he waited for me
Called me, by name
Who can spit in his face
Do not we all
Curse and swear
Spelling out our anger
Humanity is fickle
We are all fools here
Washing our feet
In the sweat of our brow
Pride is an anvil to the foot of success
You carve your gods into the mountain
Beg then to come down
To call down rain
To bring you up to the throne
If they seat you on their throne
Then you know they are made by man
Not you, you are made by hand
Tears of God still run
In the valley where he named you

We are peasants.
Tearing the hair from our own head
As if it clothed the tabernacle
When the cross was erected
The skull you hold between your hands
Is the holy of holies

Here we dance
Descrating each other in the name of love, lust and wanderlust
******* our fingers into locust and honey
That it would drip off your lips
A gluttons lies are no sweeter
Than the lies you hide under your tongue

The plates are shifting
Who will remember my name
The sun will dry me
I am dust again

Drag my fears to altar
Sacrificing sleep to make peace
With shadows dancing on the walls
Penance is a costly coin
I count sins like pennies in a jar
Plunking copper in vain
In a well that has not run dry
A well that knows nothing of my sins
No knowledge of my wishes

My temple is crumbling
Age has never met mercy
Time's cohorts know no pity
These pillars hold up shambles of a roof
Holding together is a dry hope for heavy skies

Will you lay with me
On the coolness of the stone
When the final hour awakens
Creeping in to steal the heat of your skin
Finding bashfulness looking upon the stars
This is the same sky
I see in the dark part of your eyes

I have longed for these constellations an eon and a half
Concrete in my reasoning
A stone knife on a stone table
The world is not as you know her
Or as she seems
Her spinning does not dizzy you
You crave stability
Do not leave footprints in the sand

This incense is unburnt in my lungs
Light me up once again
Can I unbreathe your memory
To unlearn threads
Unwound in my tapestries
I wait, unpatiently
For your silken voice to whisper
"Come to the light"

Promises whispered in the dark
Kept beneath the moon
Rafters of my temple an accord
The trembling of my foundation will not strike
You cannot move a stone mind
As all things are made
They can be undone
Your apologies sway them not

Will my body forgive me
For the market I hold in her temple
Sins for a denarius
A farthing for a night under her tapestries
When you could be watching stars
Stars shine the same whether you clutch a ticket or a match
They love to be the last thing burning out at night
I am not close to their light
Burning seems of little consequence to me
Look upon the stars
Find them more patient than I in stamina
I more soluble in my regrets

The sun begins pulling cloud tears back from the earth
Agels whisper the innocence of the world into the atmosphere
The stratosphere knows nothing of our regrets
She does not see fingers crossed behind our backs
Knowing nothing of pennies given for promises
Promises given for free
Plastic coins for a lover
Nothing in my pockets for me

Hold your secrets under my skin
Knowing you let the night carry you away
You can take it back
These are the dreams in the desert
In the sun, under the mountains
Those who journey on foot
Knowing that knocking on doors means being turned away

My desire to cling to you
Is the cold that pushes you away
You are the oranges in the snow
A cold citrus kiss
I know your real name
With no courage to spit it out
These hands are clenched
No room for promises here
Between your fingers and skin
You grip regret so tight
One truth that will not abandon you
Biting not the hand that feeds
Go hungry
When a morsel is a memory
Dreams a feast to you
Regret devours all but bones

Anger has chosen your words for today
She is your strong horse
You will not bare the weight of the reins
A bit does not taste much of metal
When there is blood on your hands
Your prayer today
You have hope tomorrow, to hope for tomorrow
Time is a feather, fool
You give her flight for the price of falling
These coins in my pockets are for you
To make my steps lighter
A copper face is nothing
When you have seen the writing on the walls

e pluribus unum

they call me legion

How many hands will you give me
How many dealt
To count my sins on my fingers

misertus est enim stulti

stultus est misericordia sicut vilis ut eius precibus

When the walls speak will you listen

Touching is not a sin
Within these pillars
The temple of my body, I call home.
There are no prayers to be found
Between the dryness of my lips
And where you left me
With the wetness of my eyes
Singing its hymn to the martyrs before

Their hands have gone cold
In the silence of my secrets
These martyrs knock their bones together
As if trying to make fire
Could turn back time
As if their ivory stamina
Could voice its plea
There is blood on the walls in their temples

I hear the foolish cry out
With a voice that has never known lack
That condemned buildings are only meant to be torn down
That the bricks of my house were meant to return to dust
Buried in the mortar of my memories, blown in the wind
Unbuilt with no remorse
Leaving mortar scars in the earth

If the walls of my temple could speak
Her concrete lips would part
Revealing timber teeth
If her tongue was not sewn shut with shame
She would begin with a whisper
For she has never brought her voice up from the basement before

Her breath, stumbling over the threshold finds its footing
A guttural cry makes its way forth
A voice that blows doors off its hinges
A voice that only does cosmetic damage
As it attempts to touch your heart
Where it has never been reached

The cornerstones
Begin to talk
You were told even the stones cry out
It is too late for them now and too dark
The sky was almost crying
The heavens on the verge of tears

It is too late
I came undone
Because you can't tether fingers
As much as I wanted to tie ropes
To the nerve endings of my extremities and pull with all my strength
Pull them back to my heart
So they could be safe
Feel safe
Carry to the grave
Words I could not whisper to you in the dark

What prayers could I offer
To a temple torn down in anger
What words would I give
To the grave of my being
Whose hymns still ring out
Into the night, crying
Dust to dust
Ashes to ashes

I will meet with you
Come down from the mountains
My words become those most familiar in your mouth
You were worshipping gods in the valley
Gods that have no home
My name nearly forgotten
My words not written in stone
Concrete in their absence
Absent of light, hope, pain
We move in our own way
Bear my cross as the wood it is
Not the worries or weight of the world
Meant for another's shoulders
Feel the joy of the world
None of her aching
A delicate life is not cheaper
Lashes on my back speak
To a crown of thorns
I am no deity
No matter what I eat, drink
How wise I speak
Ichor does not flow through me
Humanity is liquid, thoughts fluid
Hopes dry, day by day
Each day is new, I water them the same
May they bloom as never before
Beautiful things are for you
Whether I bear them or not
The stars will lay themselves at your feet one day
In the holiest part of your temple
Walls adorned with things that have passed
Paint that is fresh
Things that will one day be known
I see them coming
I prayed them for you
On the rooftop of this temple
Call the stars down
When you know them by name
Call me to you
A voice echoing of marble
I will come
Just as I am
As you are