I held the Bible,
once blanketed in fragile red and green--
my parents with furrowed brows
as I sat and forced my nose into each page.
I was 7.

My legs strode down the street after the slumber party.
Smoothing my sweater and shaking,
I feared being shunned within sacred walls.
"Honey, you don't have to go with them."
I was 12.

Smiles came free with my new camaraderie.
Being filled with the gospel of hatred,
"Keep doing good, you're going to hell."
My chest tumbled through my abdomen.
I was 16.

I learned that my heart could skip beats
as he held me on that skinny hard mattress.
Little did I know I wouldn't be Godly enough,
at least my lips didn't taste of deceit, too.
I was 18.

Slight contempt flooded my veins
as he lied to protect me.
"She's not Catholic, Dad, that's all,"
and I could feel the eyes I couldn't see.
I was 19.

Peace overcame me as I looked out
at the opportunities that exist
to exchange dopamine to one and to all.
Faith is not above me, but around us.
I am 24.

Baby Teeth

I pulled the prayers from my raw gums like baby teeth. With the
          blood spat into my palm, there lay the tools with which I
          chewed up everything I ever put into my mouth. And yet even
          then I had felt the hands working my jaw for me.

Every day I tongue the empty space before meals and again at
          bedtime. There’s this moment when I feel like I should be
          saying something, but the void leaves my tongue aimless in the
          newfound space. I’ve grown accustomed to it.

I wasn’t so fond of it when they wiggled in my mouth when I talked
          or ate, acting like a broken saloon door for my roving tongue. I
          didn’t like to brag about it with my friends. It didn’t quite feel
          like a rite of passage as it did a loose Band-Aid.

They dangled on those last few roots that desperately clung on to that
          childlike innocence, which looked like Awana badges, Sunday
          school, father reading to me bedtime stories of David, the
          girlfriends in church that were always repentant after we
          touched;

I began to believe I could sew it back in if I only believed hard
          enough. It was in those last few efforts that I was at my lowest,
          when my gums started to become infected as bacteria got
          beneath the bone and festered in the flesh. I grew sorer and
          sorer.

At some point I ripped every last one of them out. The therapist had
          cancelled my last three appointments. The bible study couldn’t
          progress since it refused to answer my first three questions. I
          stopped believing an artist had to first and foremost be
          miserable.

I still keep them in a little plastic treasure chest in a cardboard box in
          the garage, along with my plastic baseball trophies and other
          sentiments unworthy of the bedroom shelves. I recycled all the
          extra bibles I previously felt guilty enough to never say no to.

Sometimes a meal looks so good I feel the need to thank someone for
          it. Sometimes I wake up so happy I need to give someone credit.
          Sometimes that’s not the case. I’m happy I don’t have the voices
          telling me through my own teeth how sinful I am.

I’m also happy they’re not telling you how sinful you are.

I tongue the space before meals and before I drift to sleep. I feel
          something growing there. My parents are looking into an
          operation that will put the teeth back in. I still fear one day I’ll
          be the one to grab the sewing kit.

I don’t fear cavities anymore. I think they took them all with them. I
          brush my teeth now and believe in modern medicine, and
          climate change. Needless to say, I didn’t put them under my
          pillow that night.

Cloud Trick

I am writing on a plane:
An airbus A380 cruising
Through the emptied rooms of heaven -
The place seems larger,
Now there's no one living here.

The clouds below are thick
And suddenly I wonder:
Why is it, every time I fly,
I cannot see the land below?
Yet when I look up from the ground
I often see the aeroplanes,
Travelling through an open sky,
Angels encased in corporate livery.

Now, in my seat by the window,
Staring down,
I see little specks of light -
Perturbations in my visual senses -
Errors of the mind -
Highlighted on the canvas of the air -
And on these flickers of illusion I fixate.

What if there is no land below?
Could it be that every flight we take,
Is a computer-generated fantasy?
An elaborate scheme dreamt up
By secret powers,
Who wish us to believe in forces
Beyond all reach of human mastery?

Maybe they catapult us
To this virtual place -
A hologram of God's old house,
Designed to bring the memory near:
The hope that humanity might have
A parent in the atmosphere.

Then,
Upon taking us up
To the promised land
They showcase the sacred vacancy
Of all our dreams of paradise.

Just as I begin to fall
Into the particulars
Of this miraculous conspiracy
I stop, and realise how poor I am -
I always buy the cheapest flight:
Always leaving early in the morning,
Just at the end of the night...

Do clouds form like dew
In the darkness?
As the Earth spins,
Are its hemispheres
Alternately cloaked in veils of white,
Like an eye that opens and closes
In both directions?

What I would give to witness that.

What kind of fool am I?
One that shows no motion
Even though he thinks himself alone

What kind of fool is that?
A soul searching blind man
Who converts sight of facts to fiction

What does he perceive then?
He sees something in nothing
As a fanatical zealot would

What does he believe in?
Nothing, but he still looks
Remnants of God are still with him

Well then he is crazy, insane, a madman even
To search for something he knows isn't there

Yes,
He is only human

Forever sleep, never keep
Die and let be dead.
Rest, my friend, in Earth deep,
You've finally come to know peace.

You are no demon, angel, or beast
You are, but instead,
A beautiful thing, to say the least,
Finally come to know peace.