It's a phrase I often playfully use to describe my queer self.
("Were you ever?"my beloved Alison uniformly says in jest).
But now it seems unusually apt in another way:
As I swann around this empty house, the decor, the photos, the ornaments and old perfume bottles overwhelm me.
My head is brimming with memories as I glance past these fragments of our shared lives.
My loss is palpable and yet inescapable under this roof.
She surrounds us on the walls, hanging over us with her beaming smile amidst the family photos.
I want to escape but I can't:
In a mad way I want to believe that something of these relics around us can bring her back somehow.
She did after all carry something of the old Irish paganism with her.
But, no, this ancient shamanism is sadly absent in a room drowned out by every token of Catholicism you can think of.
It's all too much for this first born to take and yet she is still here in the tiny gaps of these precious artefacts.  
Hidden away where you can't see her.
So, no, being honest right now - I'm not quite straight yet.
The head and heart will realign soon but not with this gnawingly painful grief.
Pray for me.

...And kirchéglise(Notre) dame
   o u r l a d y m y l a d y
encyl-able, Pope or Pope or popedeux
and vindicate the waysteland
   My caska is openclosed!
(pews is pause is putride and prodigious)
Et tout-en commun?Gizerly pharaoh HA
lf gone.
Source-error of Oz
Ymandias
and dust, and dustinction

   god pull downwhich?

or fleurs-de-litigation.
Vini, vu/gesehen, conquered/konkeri?
And tot
And mort
and trunks gefallen.
Fantast-asy—I flail.
pause

S e m p i ternam.

You say your God is your rock and your light
But light can be blinding
And rock may roll
No longer do I feel faith
In an outback church house
Singing with the preachers

My friend's Father,
Who's just that,
Has a Papa Francis.
And her entire congregated family
Won't acknowledge her
Very existence.
How can she communicate.
There's a crack in the crucifix,
And it's splitting, running up the wood,
Past the cruciform,
To the Head.

When I sit among the oaken seats
surrounded by Your endless faithful,
the angelic choir in my ear,
incense cleansing my soul of woe,
I am there. I am there beneath
Your golden altar presiding, steadfast;
I am there. I am there feeling that same spirit
that has endured for millennia and imbued the souls of
our greatest writers, our greatest poets,
our most beautiful songs, our most saintly people,
and our drive for charity which
no force of evil in the world can ever, ever undo.

I sit there in awe, astonishment and fear,
as Your humble and quaking servant
raises Your True Body and Blood to the heavens;
You are among us!
Not riding in a chariot of gold nor bearing an ivory crown,
nor in flaming glory nor terrible thunder,
but amongst the sick of heart, the poor of soul,
the vain of face and the dreadful of mind.

It is then when I hear those chanted words
from the mouth of Your servant,
whatever tongue of men they be uttered in,
that I come to fully understand Your unchanging core:

"Through Him and with Him and in Him,
O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honour is Yours,
forever and ever. Amen."

The goosebumps upon my skin,
the shiver down my spine,
the sideward glance to your tearful faithful;
my own eyes brimming amidst such wonder.