I sit before you all today,
Christ deformed on a cross of
Whitman and Eliot and Plath.
You all surround me with your helmets lined with blood stained papers of past battles,
stabbing, tearing, poking and maiming at my ribs with your #2 pencils and ball point pens.
You mark me up, carving me up in red and black for all the mistakes I have apparently made.
You belch out how you would have done it, how it could be better. Why does that matter?
I hang here now, dreading it all.
Gazing at my heavenly home,
I start to ask, “Father, why do I
have to make them love me?
Can’t I just exist and be free?”
And God thunders down to me,
“Sometimes, son, being imperfect
is what makes you too perfect.”
And with his words, I purge myself
of all of the scars and judgment,
and I am born once again, anew.