When its emerald eye glimmers in the shadow of the dusty shelf above
I pause,
I sense a presense.

It is not unlike me to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects.
Give them names and nicknames and quirky character traits based on how their forms bend.

In the flickering lights of a broke wicken sanctuary though, I do not do it out of habit.

I feel it and stare it back down and see my own reflection in the cracked gems that once were a soul.

A gaudy skull.

The kind you see in home video Indiana Jones tributes,
with hats stolen from someone’s parents,
and jackets stolen from someone else’s elder siblings.
and ketchup for blood.

The kind your quirky local manic pixie dream girl uses to hold incense.

The kind I’m about to waste my money on because I’m an adult now and I can use my millennial minimum wage however I want.

I do not become aware of the possessed nature of my new buddy until I take it back home and hear it snicker in the middle of the night.

I know it is the skull, for my roommate is not one to snicker.

(He chuckles when he’s hiding an opinion and has a villainous laugh when it’s coming from a place of sincerity, but that’s beside the point)

I know it’s laughing at me.
I know this for a fact.

It takes me three more nights to call it out on it because I’ve never been confronted with the issue of standing up to a haunted antique I took home from a secondhand shop, possibly owned by satan’s offspring.
But I’m twenty-one years old and still experiencing some firsts, I suppose.

The gaudy skull is exceptionally snarky.
In a way none of my named plants ever were.
Not even Gerard.

He comes for me for the garbage on the floor and the dust on the windowsill on which he’s propped up, and then later for my poor taste in chore-doing music.

I never ask for its name because I know for a fact he’ll make a game out of it
and I am not in the mood for entertaining ghosts.

I come to realise it all on my own a couple of weeks later.
Once the snark starts to wear off,
and domesticity settles in,
and shared quiet becomes comforting,
despite the circumstances.

It is Judas.

I know this for a fact.

You do not understand the extent to which I am certain that it is Judas.
I have never been so aware of someone’s origins in my entire life.
I bought this creepy item and it is now in my room and I’m developing a weird attachment to it and maybe occasionally use it as a paper-weight and it is Judas.

I feel it in my heart and know it inside of my skull that might be standing on someone else’s touchscreen windowsill
two thousand years in the future,
jade stones for eyes even though I specifically requested amber,
but you get fucked over by bureaucracy even after death.

How do I know it is Judas?

Because I feel him stare at me like he wants to kiss me late at night and sense him plotting my betrayal early morning.

I know it is that, for a fact, because I’ve felt this exact sensation before.

My damn edgy room decor is Judas.

I try to get him to admit it himself by talking of past lovers and reading aloud the surprising number of Jesus metaphor poems I have in my room.
I hate Jesus metaphors, but I do it for that sweet sensation of seeing someone trying to dodge the inevitable once it’s coming at them like a mule through Rome piloted by the son of god.

I know he’ll cave eventually and tell me
and I know it’ll be the same caliber of glorious news as Jesus coming out of his own cave of burial,
resurrected and preaching winning.
I know I’ll win.

And I think to myself that maybe I am in the mood to entertain and just haven’t found the right outlet yet.
Maybe history’s most infamous apostle is It.
The original sinner and the original rebel.

(I’m aware it’s technically Cain, the jealousy-ridden son of Adam and Eve, but I only ever count the gays)

Judas and I have bonded.

And I can tell he’s on the verge of telling me his dark and twisted backstory. Again, I have felt this sensation before.

And when it happens, we can talk
about what it’s like being demonised by the one you love
and being the odd one out in your devotee friend group, even though you eat bread and drink wine and worship metaphor just like them.
And how patriarchal institutions distort history to pedal the same tired spiel of everything having a place and everything being there for a reason.

But we both know that isn’t true
because neither of us feel like part of god’s plan or created in anyone’s image.

And we can listen to sad music about wanting to kiss the wrong people together.

And that’s all I ever wanted from a friendship.

I wax and wane like crescent moon
Pulsating in the night.
Each day I further stray from You
And further from the light.

Dust gathers on the Holy Book,
The words that once brought life.
Now worldly vices bring me peace
In pleasure and in strife.

I once believed a God-shaped hole
Was buried in each man.
A vacuum only You could fill,
With Your almighty hand.

But then with wisdom and with time,
The scales fell from my eyes.
So many shapes that vacuum takes!
My sins of every size.

From sin to grace to sin again-
So many times I fell!
I wax and wane like crescent moon.
With my soul, is it well?

Realities don't hurt
my individuality --
they once did.

Realities don't hurt me.

Check this out:

No one cares about an addict,
unless they've found god
out in the desert sands.

Problem is,
this Earth, even as green and blue,
is all a giant wasteland, which
has decided I fit right in.

I fit right in.

Would a god try and find me,
in return? I'm pretty sure,
they wouldn't have time for that.
Especially when,

in a giant pen of temporary wills,
I fit right in.

If Gawd's children tip their pens
in front page worthy salvation,
then dip dip dip, because,

I have found that I am just
as artistically fulfilled
while hidden, as I am in light.

Enjoy your safe temp warming lamp
before consumers come to eat you.

time is now
must do it right now
meet the dream

from every corner is a threat
they want me working
they want me marrying
they want me playing corrupt games
fuck they
adios
packing my baggage
two pair of underwear and socks/ two t-shorts/ jacket and sweater/ good shoes/ perhaps timbers or some travel shoes from Kickstarter/ notebook and pen/ small phone to use like recorder and photo camera and etc/ toothbrush and toothpaste/ battle of water/ yoga mat/ weed pack/ one pair of jeans/ charger/ / sunglasses/ hat/ books/ shorts/ condoms/

fuck it
that's all

then

hitchhiking to the Warshaw
a couple of months there
living every day on full
going out/ working/ fucking/ meditating/ writing/ doing yoga/ smoking weed/ eating LSD/ meeting/ listening/ talking/ dancing/
deciding where to go next
traveling till feel like came back home
like Forest Gamp did in his running
adios

The hair on the back of my hand
glistens in the lamp at night
it tells me I am a man
I am a creature
a thing created.
I did not create myself
even though I act as if I did.  

You made this body
and you keep it alive.
When I look at my hand
sometimes it reminds me of Jesus
who was also a man.

I yearn to feel his touch
his arms around my shoulders.
How often I need his hand
on the small of my back
giving me a gentle shove.

When I picture that hand
in my mind’s eye
I see the hair
the veins that bring the blood
from his heart,
a heart so full
so big it reaches to heaven.

It also reaches into my heart
when I think of his first noticing
and then stooping down
to touch the person on the side of the road
the person nobody else would go near.
I am touched to tears.  

That was the hand of Jesus
reaching down as it does now
to this sinner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hevNco-VIho

Even Mike from Picture Loans don't wanna banter
'bout the football: I must be Mr. N.S. Senshawl.

My fascias & guttering are gagging for it,
but Safestyle never call: I must be Mr. N.S. Cenchall.

Nadir? It ain't bloomers baron Asil
in Cypriot sanctum tranquil:
it's me, myself & Mr. N.S. Senchall.

All the shitposting edgelords
catsitting for their exes Saturdaynight
are still more cool
than Mr. N.S. Senshaul.

I cross the informationsuperbillygoatsgruffbridge,
data unharvested: I must be  'NIFOC In Norfolk'...
'Drat & dratdrat, wrong username!'
blushed Mr. N. S. Censhawl.

Happy Hanukkah card was a circular
from the Inland Revenue.
Wasn't even addressed to
Mr. N.S. Senchawl.

In my hibernaculum, awaiting the business acumen
of a Sally Army mercenary, knocking to sell
me a doorbell that plays, 'Jingle Bells,
Mr. N.S. Censhall smells'.

Neither chaplain attached to suicide magnet estates,
nor my own personal Semitic Jazz Zeus, ministers
to unspeakably forgotten O me of little face,
Mr. N.S. Cenchawl ,
unseemly as all the major faiths.

Even if I rescued Meghan Markle
from Mr. & Mrs. Shackles' tumbril,
in sadiemaisie bunnyland black swaddling
on the road to Much Marcle,
the press would still misspell the hero of the hour's name,
'Mr. N.S. Censhaul'.

On my birth certificate, impasto vitiligo
of correction fluid furs the phobile mome no.
at my mum's hobile mone. & my name.
I cannot decifur
if it's Mr. N.S. Senchaul
or Mr. N.S. Senshall.
Or 'Mysteron Is Sensual'.

Has my mind gone blanket,
or is it a sense shawl?
Now I feel like Wolverine,
at least a vulperteen.
Militaryindustrial bastards, sob,
did they massacre my memories, bub?
Defuse my dreams of a life less stabby?
Contorture me into this cybertiger Caliban,
monstro-Mowgli?
Now I feel like Wolverine's
wisdomtooth, a pain deemed
so negligible
- like Mr. N. S. Cenchaul.

Stan, Stan!
Radioman
Baker,  M'intosh, Zodiac Killer,  
Dr. Livingstone,
Mike from Picture Loans,
do you copy, over?
It's me,  Mr. N.S. Dooberry.

You hold my life in your hands
But they have holes in them Jesus!
I slipped through

My hands are paper
Turning pages
Folding up
Into shadow puppet birds
So I can fly away
Or stay afloat on this sea of wine and water
Thicker than the rivers running through the torn callouses of your healing touch

I don’t know how to swim in blood
I don’t want to get my feet wet
I don’t want you to wash them
I don’t want you to put new clothes on me
Or buy me a new outfit

Even if I’m running naked in the alleys springing off the highways where folly has dressed up
I would still feel guilty if you bought me clothes again

If blood washes dirt away
I’m still gonna come out smelling like pennies
Looking like rust
Chewing on the little pieces of iron those nails left

Still slipping through the cracks in your skin
And drifting onward until I float through the red door painted black
By the darkness I see as I watch it close behind me once again

afraid to ruffle your feathers, i avoid your waves.
i lie so that you won't be annoyed, "the usual."
am i your servant that i should be afraid? That i should be...pleasing you?

ashamed of my life.
ashamed of something, someone that gave me life.
i shouldn't be ashamed of saying "God."
i shouldn't be ashamed of hesitant to say "Lord"

i am not gonna say sorry.
i am not gonna say sorry for something i did right.
so please.
listen to me.
thank you for listening to my mess.
but.
hear me out on this.
please.

i dont want to be part of this.
i dont want to be part of the destruction of myself.
i dont want to be one of them.
i dont want to be me.
i want to be him.

I have made many trips wandering far and wide.  I made it home.  Now that I have made my ending journey. A few words I leave you.
My body faded away. I went on to the glorious blue realm of heaven as the splendid fragrance of sage surrounded me.  Those that have gone on before waved me on with laughter and celebration. An angel so beautiful that words cannot explain opened his arms and invited me to make my final trip.
"Don't be sad, be happy for me."
For today I sit at Jesus feet.

My Spirit took flight with angel's breath
Like leaves in the fall that wain as the
new season comes.

I have reached my final home.
I will see you again when your season comes.
"Don't be sad. Be Happy for me."