taking candy from spiritual strangers,

whose only wish is to

connive you into understanding—

that you are mortal and thus can fail,

at anything and everything you set your mind to

by using distractions of your flesh—

how it feels to be touched

echad echad

you call the names but they barely

mean anything by now

these eyes

once so pearly oceans are now

shut-off hell’s gates that call you forth,

asking you to lay down your soul for

something so fleeting as

succubus sugar lips

and you finally understand

echad echad

it calls to you as you try to walk away,

to try to better your bleeding,

your razor-sharp dreams—

so diamond clear that you cut yourself

reaching through the void

to feel it, to feel something

becoming possessed by the idea of possessing—

something—

a spirit a person a hand a light at the end of the

tunnel that you’ve been limping

and dragging yourself towards for so long

that you barely remember what it feels like

to be free

to be joyful to be happy and you wish,

you hope,

that some sovereign crown some prize

is waiting for you when you emerge from your filth

into new white clothes,

a conformation in snow,

leaving behind the Harry Potter scars the demons

the hatred you’ve spent years hoeing and raking and sowing away at—

digging your soul out from under the ivy that’s been

creeping numbing,

you look into his windows open up his chest cavity

to find the flailing flawed organs

beating madly away

I love you I love you

echad echad

but it’s too much to rip sutures out now

the skin has grown over—

the molecules trying with all their dark matter might

to heal their physics their chemistry,

the great scientists had no notion

of the neutrons and protons of the spirit

the Holy Spirit of all the ages,

combine, puzzle pieces that confuse and puzzle

your very matter and mass of existence

why do you love how do you love,

what is this

echad echad

friends who wish to become guardian angels

when they fall through the void,

but who find themselves already there—

living skeletons living shrouds—

I want to help but step back stand back

let the bomb implode without absorbing the fallout,

and sometimes I fear I’m becoming a fallen angel too,

the youth and light splintering through

the windows of the houses that sometimes I swear I see

specters spiraling through—

so I constantly exorcise the notion of darkness from

within the very abyss of my cranial lobes

without lobotomizing myself from the pain

of two thousand years of history

cry for the Biblical hysteria

can you hear it—

nearby the horizon you should hear the hero

dragging crucifixes as chains

and sin, sweet sour sin,

is the taste in my mouth every morning,

no matter how many times I swish the mouthwash—

I’m constantly reminded of the fact that I am human

and thus cannot attain angelic security in my beliefs—

bless me again for I will fall

I will feel

this anxiety until the second

Saint Peter ushers my soul into eternity—

I can hear my track record echoing now—

ringing a hollow sound—

every time I convince myself of one more vain day

one more lustful night,

every time I see your eyes,

wide as Horus’s,

but inside I see Cerberus snarling against his choke collar,

so I continue calling out

over my shoulder as I flee

echad echad

for at the center of this infinity fold lies love,

for this is a metaphor,

for monsters of Hades dirtying the waters of our minds,

having us believe that lust equals love

as E equals MC squared,

but it’s not exact except for exaltation

so it echoes the old adage

echad echad

pink ribbon scars

he tastes like you but sweeter—

anthems of our childhood that want us to feel

like we’re not alone but what is there really—

to help—

and why isn’t every drop from Heaven holy water,

so that every time the rains come our past lives wash away

and we are born anew—

Dios Mio! Mein Gott!

crying S.O.S. S.O.S.—

what would Saint Augustine say in our present state,

ICXC drawing the sign in glittering gold to

protect to bless to save

our simian style souls,

and Twain asked who prayed for the devil

the precursor to the apple-fall,

Newton style,

and it is God,

God prays for the most fallen of all,

so why do I find in my heart that it is so hard

to forgive those who have done so little

in comparison—

sing the baptismal rite,

sing ICXC,

letting our sins be scrubbed through cross-like metaphors,

but what truly is my cross to bear—

to always fall into a love so poisonous

as Eve’s apple as Snow White’s apple—

I’ve drifted I know

but I sift through the sieve of my body,

searching through the oats and grain to find the seeds

that fell on ground not hallowed,

to recultivate them to grow—

Lord knows my rut my routine

is as bad as the next heathen’s,

my dress hangs on my frame,

a skeleton queen

trying to gorge my heart out on a love not pure

a life not fulfilled,

help me I pray—

this is my cry—

my anxious mind feeds off of trying to decode

the taps on the glass of eternity,

trying to reach through impenetrable planets to ask—

what is this love I want it so bad

echad echad

I’m a baker’s making of nature and nurture,

trying to unearth from the dregs of the soul

the meaning the feeling

of why of what of how

but finally finding that no matter how maddeningly

brilliant,

how beautiful and ******,

we cannot know the mind of God—

we are not titans,

we are not the same stuff of myths of legends of angels,

and I cry, I cry, I beg and cry,

my beggar’s prayer is to know

when I have been given such grace,

why am I still greedy for more—

for I read to you from a play,

I read to you from poetry that you claim is not about you

but it is,

for only you have the dichotomy of fast knives

and feather kindness that I could express

so eloquently,

but you don’t understand you will never understand

the marrow of my faith in a God that you believe you are as strong as,

even as I plead you to stop playing with this soul

you have been so graciously given,

because you are dazzled by other

seemingly stronger things in this life,

your eyes becoming clouded by this idea that you are immortal

even as your heart palpitates a warning to slow—

to slow it down—

I’ve seen so many brought down by these myths of power

and magic, candles burning brightly

now snuffed and made silent by spirits you know naught of,

and I cannot stress the simple thing that strength

is more than pride and Samson-ian body girth,

but you battle away these tried truths in

the face of temptations,

giving up and throwing down the sword that was handed

to you to fight to persevere

and I see—

I see I see I see—

the demons that you fight are titans in your shadow,

even in mine, they are tall,

and I have to let you go because it is slowly becoming too much

too hard to handle the reins of this bucking rearing thing

that was once love,

because no matter how much of my sloppy dripping heart

I throw in your face

you will never understand the depths the dark recesses

of why, of how,

I came to be in

echad echad.