I know God is lonely
He gave me arms to hold him

I know God is lonely
Because when I hold him
And our hearts are side by side
They start to beat together

As if this entire time
His heart was looking for another
To prove that someone cared
That someone loved him

I know God is lonely
Because when I sit in the rain
Burning joint between my lips
And no one around to watch

The rain seeps to my bones
So that sitting by your side near the fire
Will be sweeter for it

I know God is lonely
Because we are apart
And I am lonely

Maybe I don't have enough tears
Maybe no amount of tears would be adequate
I find myself shaking
Screaming
Retching
And in all my misery
Still I do not have you
And I can not cry an ocean
I can not cry a single tear

Swallow them down
Lumps of coal leaving dust in my throat
Cough once
Cough twice
Spit out black coal dust
Brush my teeth

In my chest
Or sometimes my stomach
The pressure builds

When I *****
And my stomach wretches
And my heart seizes

They'll climb back up my esophagus
Edges sharpened
Reflecting crimson gore
From the paths they cut as they came back out

If coal can turn into diamonds
Can my "self restraint"
Turn a bitten tongue into silver?

I cut my voice on diamonds
They looked like rubies when I spit them out

My sister has curly hair
From day one
She has cut and burned it at every chance

Her hair is dark and thick
Like our fathers
I wish I had his hair instead

I wish the follicles on my head
Wernt thin and brittle
And quick to fall

Would that make me a man?

My sister has a flat chest,
My ******* have been called the best
My family and friends alike

She calls her own chest, childlike
If we traded, and my breath was unstressed
If they fell from my body

Would that make me a man?

What an unjust God
Who would give us bodies
That did not fit our souls

What cruel diety
Would leave us feeling
So cramped

There is a scream stuck in the back of my throat
But this body is not mine
So I cannot let it out.

This scream is generational
An heirloom who's barers begged to not pass on
They were given no choice

This scream wraps it's claws around my words
It wants them to help lift it out
But my voice is too small to be a vessel for so much pain.

Did this scream taste like blood at the back of my grandmother's throat?

Does it taste like blood at the back of yours?

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If I scream towards the sky and you cover your ears, will your God hear it?

Will you put our faces in the dirt because you do not like the look in our eyes?

Will you say you have been cut when we spit ****** mud at your face?

There is a scream stuck in the back of my throat
It is my birthright, this clawing grief
My condolences to whoever bears it next.

Why have you come to sit upon my shoulder?
Demon in my ear you curse my waking days
When was it first that your foul words came to echo along my own thoughts?
From which abyss where you hatched?
Did the fiendish imp upon my mother's back spawn for me my undying companion?
Lord of lies your tongue is not silver.
White hot it sears me, every word a brand on my moral conscience.
Was it from birth then, that you came too me?
What burden to me which you and your kin have become.
I cannot pry your talons from my flesh with any more ease than pulling my very thoughts from my head.
Foul futures you whisper to me.
The world is set aflame by forlorn candles in the mornings and perhaps by the left wing of a monarch I am painted blue in the night.
I am beset with the scars of your care.
Hold me gently while you serenade me with tales about the noises in the night.
Perhaps tell me again about how the crash I have just heard was poison falling from the cabinet to feed the cat who will surely now foam at the mouth and die.
I will get up to find him and tell you that you are wrong.
And then something will rattle and bid me here you speak again.