if only i had shown more love,
eve thinks, calloused hands brushing
dirt upon her baby boy.

adam sits tired in the field,
sweat dripping like blood down
his brow as he thinks O' this
sorrow must be what death
feels like.

cain collapses somewhere between
eden and nowhere, the taste of
copper haunting the back of his
throat.

abel, clothed in light, lets out a laugh.
it echoes to earth like the thud of a
sacrifice He did not ask for.

- the first family

this is the godless territory of lesser
beings,
or so i’ve been told; wingless movement,
serpentine
against mosaic tile, bellies cut open by the
sins
of man– such a pitiless misfortune of unkempt
pride.

this is neither heaven nor hell but something wholly
in-between,
purgatory surrounded by faceless skin walkers,
starched
by their infinitesimally short lives and i, among them,
walk
to and fro, just as forsaken as they, with this knowledge to
bear.

their lives are kept in a cycle of dust, clenched in bloodied
hands,
molded not like potter’s clay as i was told– no, they are
wild,
petulant things, so full of ideas and wit and horrible will;
teetering
somewhere on the edge of an oblivion of fire or
light.

i miss my many eyes and tongues of fire and gossamer wings
painfully,
there is an emptiness in my eggshell skull that yearns to
break,
to pour out vengeance in bowlfuls, to chant amongst the
others,
to hear my all-knowing kin as they blow their trumpets to signal
armageddon.

i didn’t understand you–
i don’t think anyone did.
i don’t think anyone could.

you were the wrath of the lamb
and the rib of Adam,
you were the burning cherubim by
the savage Garden,
you were Samael and Apollyon,
brooding in Gehenna  

you were a god and a devil,
and i’m afraid
that i never found out who
won, in the end.

when you loved me,
was it because you knew who
i was or was it because
you knew what i would become?

advice for future doctors:

1. learn failure early.
you are not perfect,
and your patients need
you to be–

but you aren’t and all
those nights spent awake
will haunt you with ghosts
tucked in hospital gowns

2. learn empathy like it’s
your body under the scalpel,
your skin pulled back and
exposed under white light

scratch at invisible scars,
recall the feeling of metal
against your chest, and shiver
at the touch of another

3. learn to cry anywhere,
whether it be between
floors in a hospital
built like a morgue

or in your car, going
too fast with tired eyes
down an empty road that
you wouldn’t mind dying on

i was twelve when my aunt took me by the hand
and lead me like a dog across the cotton gin;

white teeth, white skin, white cotton–
it left a nausea in my stomach that i couldn’t place

i didn’t know, dear lord i didn’t know
why my dark skin hid under long sleeves in the dead of summer

my frame shook as i crouched in the warm field,
sweat pouring down my brow

i still remember pulling my hands away from the thistle,
a small drop of crimson beading against my thumb

i ****** and it was gone, copper leaden on my tongue,
an albatross hung snugly around my neck