Ask me when the tune is in order
Simple, mutual and narcissistically pronounced
Pouts we saved, become a rule of thumb
Voices to remember you, a host of inclination, found?

Intuition found your shoe...
Bared and staring at the name of infinite share
We collect a need to us, like the song we woo
The blessing of another muse, is only where...?

Places and faces of direction, an estimate
Of since, we are the clarity of espousal
Sight unseen, the question of vice, has come irate?
Is anger to term the naked, the future of valediction?

A band with hands on the other side
Of commencement, to wish in unseemly did
The character we approve, is but a decisive flight
Of fancy, that has the stone of heed, for a friend

Honor among thieves, or adage of a copping plea?
The tooth we sought, for a dalliance that has the tears
A bird of paradise, that calmly advances on the sake, seen
And heard, with a repose that ventures far, as you near...

a wicked, unrighteous child's mind
lies closer to the truth
than a noble graybeard's ever will &
here is that only, hideous verity:
death has the body of a boy.
an ocherous-haired boy, sylphlike,
unearthly, peerless and
other word to forbear from writing 'beautiful'.

guiltless people do not know that.

'irradiating one, let me hold you', he says,
and i let him. i can recall swearing,
palms pressed together and liquid lungs
settled at the bottom of a bathroom sink,
never to allow to be eaten again
because that is what holding someone is for;
(guiltless people do not know that.)

be that as it may,
i let him.
forgiveness was never
suited for me, anyway.

there can be no fallacy;
no fraud can remain a fraud
once they are birdlimed
by a fire-stricken embrace.
a mindless prey is what they become.
a devourer is what he always was.

guiltless people do not know that.

my eyelids will not yet sink over my pupils,
not until his hidden claws,
ribboning and shredding their way
out of his unsoiled skin, turn
my neck into bloodbath,
my heart into maelstrom.

what a blessed, glory-driven way to meet death.

I imagine how soft the hands must have been
to crush supple, christened grapes into wine,
and I sip for longer, staring down the Deacon;
avert my eyes from the wrinkles that find
some hand between, a drop of wine on the palm,
pushing the lifeless red to lips, mine.

With the wood of the pews touching bare thigh
and someone either side of me, I pray, silently,
for the ghosts of the Vestal Virgins who were, too,
boxed into Heavenly pastures, to come and sing,
with cherry-wine mouths, that Hell will be most glorious.

I wish women were priests, and think of how tempting
it must have been for Eve to find gentleness
when Adam touched his remaining ribs - the beauty
of self, she must have eaten an abundance of fruits
grown from male seed, before the apple speaks of tenderness,
of the mirror that shows herself. The cruelty of the snake
burns, and Hell bleeds as punishment for unwritten crime.

But how beautiful it is, to think that God exists!
To think of him lying dead, splayed out,
or perhaps curdling into spoiled milk, festering
in the fetal position, plumes of Papal smoke
encompassing his body, the smell of stale cigarettes
and spilled wine, and a congregation chorus-echo of Last Rites.

I have never been sure how to worship, only the imperative
of the verb - to worship - to allow God to enter wherever he pleases
and to leave wildly, like horses trampling across northern grass.
I have known for as long as I have held privy to thought
that my body is not my own, I must open the gateway to my vessel
and let him free me from sin; Lord, help me,
but I keep finding God in the eyes of a woman.

Finding her at a crossroads is like finding myself in the dark,
forbidden, and the easiest thing my hands have ever led me to do,
except I can no longer recall whether any hymns sung of Eve;
temptation crowns her legacy and we remain treated this way,
like grapes, and there is power beyond omnipotence in accepting
that if we are going to be crushed, we may as well hitch our last breaths
on the lips of women, praying, eternally, for God’s eyes
to have been burned out by his own, masculine light.

The first plague that sunk into us told us how to see red,
the anger, either alien or overfamiliar, turned inwards
into our stomachs, acidic and bubbling until we choked
on the waters, and still we begged the Nile
for relief, ******* salt from our tears.

And then there was discomfort, slipping into our beds at night.
The women, familiar with the dissimilarity of abject slime
merely sighed in the expectation of their husbands,
but the sensation screamed of newness to the men, and they ran.

When lice came, we scratched ourselves raw and there was redness again,
until the streets were serenaded by shrieks, and long fingernails became fitting
for women who sewed new clothes when the others ripped theirs apart.

The wild animals were like old friends who tore apart already broken bodies;
this was the time that the women sang each other to sleep,
all we could do was offer meek comfort to each other,
telling stories of how this would never have happened
were it not for the pride that never touched us.

Women worried when pestilence came, unforgiving and without discrimination
to our livestock; without food, we starved ourselves intentionally,
hoping with fragile limbs that there would never be enough meat
on our bodies to substitute for sustenance.

Pained enough, we thought we were used to it when our bodies turned against us,
without anger this time, only vile sores that burst in the dead of night;
we soothed each other’s wounds, our hands familiar with battle scars
and hoped that it would be enough.

The end of days could not come faster than when the fire rained down on us.
Some brave women, tired of being sacrifices, ran towards the flames,
either weary and half-finished already, or aching to find a burning bush
through which salvation may lie for those who did no wrong.

An attack on our senses droned into nothingness as locusts fell,
their bodies used to punish us, a concept of which we wept for,
we knew intimately, and sobbed not for the chess board
but for the pawns who must always fall first.

It was strange, how much darkness felt like reprieve,
in those three liminal days where our songs were unburdened
and rang free across the devastated plains;
oh, those days we sang so loudly that it was almost over.
They were almost free, and we were almost able to go back
to how we were different before.

But tragedy seeps slowly in the night on the burning wings of angels,
and our firstborns were stolen.
I, still young, did not bear the grief of mothers, but I was the third child.
It’s harder to be going than to be gone.

I’m told to seek penance in the rosary,
and I want to throw the bible in their faces,
because how can they forget Lot’s Wife so easily?
How can trauma be so effortlessly muddled
in the word of the Lord?
How am I supposed to forget all that happened to me?

It is my fault, I’ve been told,
for looking back,
for dwelling on it until the bitter salt
becomes me, and I am a pillar,
but I will not forget so easily.

I cannot forget, if at all,
and those men in white robes speak testaments
of electric shock therapy until I am drooling,
and they are collecting it in a vial,
and it’s another story about trauma
that becomes seasoning for the lamb.

It is my fault, I think,
as I look back
and wonder what could have been done differently.
What I could have said or done
to prevent the men of faith
from ripping me to shreds
in their own stories.
Why am I,
not quite feminine and not quite fragile,
just a story to be told over beers and whiskey
about how I am a stepping stone
to your pillar?

Why do you get to be the pillar?
Why do you get to be the stone?
Why am I the salt-like spider webs,
stronger than your steel
but broken by your diamond hands,
born from the coal that I forged?

We were dying of thirst,
clamouring amongst each other
to lick the spit of women
like mothers’ milk,
we cried out, begging
for resolution,
for water in the drought.

Our lives were shattered,
children screaming
for the since-dried milk
of nourishment,
women sobbing upon
small corpses.

God, we cried.

And then you came,
a gift amongst the flint;
we had long since found fire
but you taught us
how to put it out.

It ached in the milk-light
of our bones,
a flowing stream
and tablets carved
of testaments,
of commandments
that spoke
of how we were destroying
the earth,
how repentance
is simply not enough.

And god, we cried,
we cleansed our sins,
and we cried
for water,
and you brought it to us.

Legs spread,
Mother Mary holding
women close,
the only sacrament
worthy of sacrifice.
Men falling in useless battles,
and women bringing water
to the dead.

We found a stream.
We drank.

Mother Mary sunk wide,
and god, we drank.

Sometimes I wonder
How someone could ever call something so incredibly beautiful
A sin

Check your bible my friend
Your translation is twisted
We're all sinners

Equal in the eyes of God

Did you forget
His entire thing
Is loving us All

So say it's a sin. Tell the world how you hate us
(Hate is a sin)
Say you're not one of "those homophobic people"
But tell me it's wrong
Right to my face

My friend, you've become
My enemy
But I will love you
(God says that's something we all should do)

So I will pray earnestly
For the day
You realize I'm "one of those awful sinners"
And maybe you too
Will understand and accept my God
(Because he accepts and loves Everyone)

Until then,
I won't tell you if I get a girlfriend
(But I swear I'll love her)

And I'll expose your children
To all the "horrors of this earth"
(Because I believe they're beautiful)
And really, how could anyone call something so beautiful
a sin