when i was younger I would crawl into bed and try to stave off the gut-crush of guilt. i was guilty about everything. everything was small and somehow the biggest thing in the world. (please just make me clean. i only want to be clean. i am a good person, i promise.) it guilt came crushing in. usually i would cry. if i couldn't fight it off by myself, i'd roll in on myself like a dying bug. limbs a tangle. twitching slightly. sometimes i could catch myself. count myself into oblivion until i forgot whatever it was. (please just make me clean. i only want to be clean. i am a good person, i promise.) usually i'd holler for my mother, my god. quiet, at first. finally loud enough for her to hear me form down the hall. (god wanted to watch tv. god probably pretended not to hear me until i was screaming.)
"what's wrong?" she'd ask me.
"can you come in here, please?" my voice. small.
there she was, every time. a gray silhouette in a slice of golden light. and i would confess to her, like she was god. I was not raised religious. (i needed something to cling to.) she absolved me every night. scornful, reassuring. (i think i am lucky i was not raised catholic. because i had a god who loved me.) she taught me guilt and burned me free of it every night.
i don't confess anymore.
i have not seen god since i was twelve and my other became human. sometimes i think of writing letters and burning them, to purge the crushing feeling form my chest. sometimes i think of making myself throw up. most of the time i switch it off like she taught me, think about something else and fall asleep. (i sleep with the light off, now.) the dark does not stroke my hair. the dark does not tell me to apologise. the dark does not tell me i am good, that it isn't my fault. (i still need someone to tell me it isn't my fault.)

you said will you be there to catch me and I said okay
and i was there over and over again
I haven't been a kid since year seven
cause the ledge is always waiting to swallow all my friends

we don't talk anymore but i still think of you sometimes
because i held you tight, because i kept you alive
you asked me to catch you
and now I don't know how to let go

maybe it's just that I watched whiplash last weekend,
but i'm prepared to work for all the **** I want
but i want to be abused
but i want to come out the other side
but i want to take orders with the best
but i want never to be laughed at again
but i want to be wanted
but i want to be revered
but i want to be validated
but i wanna annihilate
but i wanna earn it
but i want and i want and i want
but i want the stage and the name
but i want the glory and the fame
but i want the sweat and the blood
but i want the heat and the breath
but i want to be remembered
but i want to be great
but i need to be great
and maybe it's just that i watched whiplash last weekend,
but i'm wiling to do anythinganythinganything for this to work out

before we grew apart
i dreamt of you dying
of your mother
clutching your voice, crying
in the chlorinated stands
where we met for the first time
she holds out the phone,
says “say goodbye”
and i’m running
railing flying by
reaching through thick air
to the mother who buries her boy
and i don’t know
if i made it in time
and i mustn’t have
cause we haven’t talked in a while
and i woke up smelling chlorine
and i never got a goodbye

that's just the way the body goes i guess
wanna mould my hands around his shoulders
through t-shirt and pyjama pants
wonder what the mirror shows him

that perfect mouth is smiling
do i wanna be him or ingest him
i wish that i could memorise it
wanna put my mouth around the reflection

kiss him everywhere until he sees red
hold his perfect imperfect face and
taste myself on his breath
take his arms or be held in them
i wanna feel and i wanna know
i guess that's just the way the body goes

it's highschool recess and my best friend and i watch the seventh-graders
from our perch as 'older boys' with minimum-wage jobs and harder homework. one is handing around a gleaming can of monster energy like the blood of christ himself and everyone wants some. they treat the factory-issue can with such tender care, flushed fingertips on cold metal.

"why are they so excited about a monster?" i ask.

("what does it taste like?" a wide-eyed friend's younger brother asks.)

"because it's novel. it's their first taste of freedom." my friend says, and
then suddenly i remember all the times we've done the same with our friends.  

first, in an airport because me and my shaking hands couldn't finish it ourselves. outside school, warm from the flesh of someone's school bag all day. under the table and the teacher's nose because i stayed up too late, comuning with other friends in the blue dark. no matter who buys it's always for all of us.  

("have a sip"-"i don't like this one"-"the juice one is my favourite")

like maybe the 58g of sugar and 600mL of caffeine is okay if it's split between us. like the sharing of spit is holy. i look out at the small crowd of seventh graders and realise they are just beginning to learn:

what is communion if not half backwash?
what is holier than ingesting your friends?
what is holier than killing your hearts together?

some nights i think i am cain without an abel
i hate my brother for never having been
i carry him, keep him, like he happened
he is heavy and i have never met him
i would hate him if he was flesh and i wish he were me
i killed him before he was alive, ruined eve's body by living
i am the first poisoned crop that made the field untillable
i killed him as he slept and i hadn't met him yet
some nights i hear him around the house
he lives in the gaps in my mother and father's conversation
some nights i think i am cain
missing an abel more for never having held him