I can’t remember the first time I did it-
Flashing silver in the place of blood-true red inside my mouth.
To me, that was the worst. There was
no moment I could drag myself to,
screaming crying cowardly, and make it better.
No rhyme nor reason for the
twist inside of me.

At night I prayed for some forgiveness,
but I stopped going to Mass before my Confirmation and even I knew there could be no
True deliverance without repentance⁠—
53 Hail Marys cannot do what crystal lemon AWESOME does to the pistons of my father’s pickup truck, not
when the engine is
Clutching to its grime
Clinging for synthetic, automated life to the decades worth of caked-on dirt and sludge that
Are what it knows.
Unwilling to be clean.

And so I do not step one foot in church,
Yet I cannot keep my eyes from my mother’s wooden carving of the Last Supper,
Wishing he would turn his eyes to me, as well,
Knowing that he won’t.
Gripping the tablecloth at family dinner,
Seeing my own hand as his, clutching his bag,
Iscariot, my brother, whom I know as though another self.

All sins are the same.
In my own way, I too betray the salt.