You paid more attention
To your red letters
Than to the colored words of
Jesus.
I guess accessibility is what it takes
To name our identity.

Mean words were accessible to you,
Easier to come by than scripture.
Already imprinted in your head
From childhood,
No need for memorization
Or word for word quotation,
Or chapter and verse
References.
It didn’t matter who said what.

Cruelty is easy.

Cruelty’s simplicity made it easy
To write your own red letter verses
On your body.
After all,
All you had to do to find the right tool
Was to open a drawer and find a razor blade,
Not leaf through thousands of strangely thin pages
And tiny columned sentences.

So now in this new era
Of adulthood,
I try to make love
Accessible to you,
I try to make it accessible to myself.
No more red letters in pale skin,
Just glowing love
Held in the palms of our hands
Well past midnight,
Made of pixelated letters
Typed by nail-bitten thumbs.