You are young when you realize that you know far more
than the wrinkles on their faces and the creases in their eyes
You are young when you realize that you will brave a winter stampede
with the stagnancy of a rock, with the precision of a hunter
Your heart will never falter
You are in control.

A time comes when the world is drenched
and dripping in blues and yellows—
Warmth beckons, your cheeks are turning flushed
from the bouts of heat and—an Apollo has
entered your realm:
he touches your hand with the loud but brief kiss of youth
(—a moon shatters in your line of sight, the shards spread
across the universe and he removes his hold and
the lunar sphere takes its spot back,
and then—)
You feel yourself again, although a moment ago you were made of porcelain fractions cracked with the force
that your eyes emitted when they widened;
Your heart asks to falter
You refuse its desire.

Lucifer has ravaged you:
Your revelation occurs when you are coated
in sheen sweat on a summer night’s wanton rendezvous
He, the renegade angel, has touched you: God’s Child
And you are condemned to dream of Utopia
(—Utopia, for you, is a neat arrangement of two bodies of flesh
poised together in a study against a window;
hair cut before it hits a chin, never below,
and the ambrosia musk of a—)
A cry builds in your throat, you swallow it down;
it is steaming soup taken too eagerly for the hunger building
in an empty stomach and then found very scathing;
Your heart whispers, “I will falter.”
You hush it.

Mother says something about your future
It is a comment regarding romance,
and settling,
uttered with a shrill giggle and batting eyelashes—
Anger swells in your chest, mimicking a hurricane on the seaside
and you declare, loud and clear, that you will never marry
She laughs again and ignores you, a familiar gesture on her part
but she turns ashen when you pitch the white teacup
to the ground and it breaks like your heart did a month ago
(—the Apollo looked away from you with a downward curl
of his chiseled pink lips and you realized that you
were never going to be the One for
any of your abundant Ones and—)
There is a lifetime to utter and no chance that she will listen;
Your heart does not falter
You are not in control.

Another deity arrives, albeit a minor one
He is made of rosy cheeks and a young boy’s sheepish grin
Nothing special, you decide—He is beautiful, cut from marble
but not gold; a sight to admire and not a mind to caress
You think little for a long time
until suddenly you think a lot
(—the inward curve of His back when He stands outside
in a white shirt, the leap that your innards do when
He stands with you,
the crater dimple when His mouth turns up,
the cadence of His lyrical voice
and—)
—and you’re in Love
Just like always,
except this time there is a chance and no Faith to rein you in;
Your heart finally falters
You do not take note.

The Greats tell the epitome of fairy tales in wisps of words,
adventure stories, love stories,
spinning and weaving the best of humanity
And all that hear are inclined to believe in their words
You shudder when He brushes your arm
and you shiver when He speaks
when He says something of importance
your soul inflates
so that you, yourself, are inclined to believe
the golden threads of your favorite novels:
Is love not the universal blessing? It is this! It is this!
This is the apogee of Being Alive,
this is the peak of Existence,
the ****** of your Entire Life
The culmination of a Heaven
you are suddenly willing to almost believe in
(—Hall, Hall, Hall, Hall, Hall, Hall—)
He kisses you and it is settled;
Your heart does is faltering every day
You welcome it.

And then you no longer sing about life and love
from the depths of your soul,
you no longer coax phrases of adoration
and admiration
from the back of your mouth,
where they used to sometimes dance
across your tongue

And then you can no longer reach a hand out
to touch a red cheek—red from desire,
red from anger, red from obsession—
and let it run across the holy surface,
a worshiper on a Sunday visit
bending down with a prayer

And then you no longer remember
the plague of your adolescence,
the monster underneath your bed
that you could never evict,
you cannot think about it for the life of you
and suddenly—
Queen Anne’s Lace looks adequate

(—you feel like your mother
with your falsities and manipulation of yourself;
you feel like your father
with the spontaneous death of your emotions;
you did, in the end, learn love for the first time
only because of Him
the sun that woke you up
and has now set;
Godforsaken! Eternal night—)

He is present on the day you commit to your passing,
placed somewhere nice but hardly special—
you cannot risk having Him believe
He still matters
All the same you think it would be very useful
if you were to articulate the ****** slop of pain
and guilt occupying your brain
You know you cannot, you know you do not know how,
you simply cannot fathom such a concept, and still—
(—sometimes you still dream of Utopia
and it has taken on a different form
and in this renewed variation of your Utopia,
the world is drenched and dripping in blues and yellows
and he, your former deity, is Yours again,
and you are able to say what is breaking your heart
because you cannot say it in actuality,
and He understands
and He forgives and—)
“I do," she says
Your heart does not falter
You no longer have one.