dear god of needle ***** and poisoned well
i pray you find my mother
cold and dry and unfeeling
something you can draw no moisture out of
a different god struck a rock with a staff
a long long time ago
and water came to cool his throat
but there are no miracles here
so you can please stop beating her now

dear god of gluttonous apothecary
my mother's body is a mathematical
uncertainty
it is a function with limits
her veins are rolling with their bellies full
of chemicals that burn
her hair runs from the scalp the way
two legs would
from a house going up in flames
my mother's body
is a house going up in flames
i am a child that is terrified of a monster
under the bed
i am helpless to a thing i can feel but
cannot see

dear god of gasoline remedy
your counterintuitive science
your black dream
takes her body like a new land
teaches her it's wretched language
it rapes and pillages
it steals the recognition
that sparks her eyes when she looks in mine

dear god of intravenous dark rider
let her live to see a day
she can wake and not be bound
to her biology

dear god of pink ribbon tourniquet
let her breathe and take it for granted again

dear god of careful rampage
finish what you have started
and lock the door behind you

there's a summer growing in my mother
there's something burning
blistering something soft
my mother's woman
is souring like warm milk
it tells her this is natural
this is the way an organic thing rots

there's a winter growing in me
there's something cold
splintering something soft
my mother's woman
is freezing like a lake in december
small and cold and stagnant
and everyone's too scared
to put too much weight on it
i'm trying to be strong
but strong feels cold
cancer feels cold
what does that make me

there's a spring growing in my mother
there's something growing in my mother
there's something putting down roots
my mother's woman
is growing plastic flowers
from hospital bracelet stems
she waters them with her iv drip
it grows and tells her it's natural
it grows and tells her it's right
it's not right

there's an autumn growing in me
there's something about believing
in a god that shows mercy
that dies
when you watch mercy
get its *** kicked by mutation
my mother's bravery
is getting its *** kicked
by biology
my mother's hope is a thing with feathers
my mother's faith is a thing with leaves
and both of them are dying
she tells me it's okay
it's not okay
it's not okay

everything that smokes isn't always a gun
but sometimes it is
God doesn't always come in a pillar of fire
but sometimes you burn and i still call it holy
sometimes you hold me and i don't call it chains
my skin remembers you long after you leave
but i don't call it sunburn
maybe i should
maybe there was a gun 'cause i still have
all these holes
maybe you were God
maybe you were hell but you burn even slower
like a sunburn