when i was younger I would crawl into bed and try to stave off the gut-crush of guilt. i was guilty about everything. everything was small and somehow the biggest thing in the world. (please just make me clean. i only want to be clean. i am a good person, i promise.) it guilt came crushing in. usually i would cry. if i couldn't fight it off by myself, i'd roll in on myself like a dying bug. limbs a tangle. twitching slightly. sometimes i could catch myself. count myself into oblivion until i forgot whatever it was. (please just make me clean. i only want to be clean. i am a good person, i promise.) usually i'd holler for my mother, my god. quiet, at first. finally loud enough for her to hear me form down the hall. (god wanted to watch tv. god probably pretended not to hear me until i was screaming.)
"what's wrong?" she'd ask me.
"can you come in here, please?" my voice. small.
there she was, every time. a gray silhouette in a slice of golden light. and i would confess to her, like she was god. I was not raised religious. (i needed something to cling to.) she absolved me every night. scornful, reassuring. (i think i am lucky i was not raised catholic. because i had a god who loved me.) she taught me guilt and burned me free of it every night.
i don't confess anymore.
i have not seen god since i was twelve and my other became human. sometimes i think of writing letters and burning them, to purge the crushing feeling form my chest. sometimes i think of making myself throw up. most of the time i switch it off like she taught me, think about something else and fall asleep. (i sleep with the light off, now.) the dark does not stroke my hair. the dark does not tell me to apologise. the dark does not tell me i am good, that it isn't my fault. (i still need someone to tell me it isn't my fault.)

Let me illuminate the stage.

Take my hand and let us walk back through the wilted willows.
The soft complacency of silk pillows is now covered in mold.
They have usurped our pristine kingdom;
O, Untainted kingdom.

Our god has become a mortal,
And ravens meander across his soul.
We are lost in the wilderness of pure madness;
Where are the hitherto skies of reason?

The apples are corrupted by smug, fat worms,
And Jackals feast on our smooth ankles.
Buzzards encircle babes at birth and
Alas feast on them whenever they please.

Wine flows like a murderous viper
Across a desolate, crumbling Arden.
Illiterate men feign literacy in the back of bars
And meagre glimpses of sunlight flash across charred skies.

I miss that breeze, that warm breeze;
Where is my Eden?

some nights i think i am cain without an abel
i hate my brother for never having been
i carry him, keep him, like he happened
he is heavy and i have never met him
i would hate him if he was flesh and i wish he were me
i killed him before he was alive, ruined eve's body by living
i am the first poisoned crop that made the field untillable
i killed him as he slept and i hadn't met him yet
some nights i hear him around the house
he lives in the gaps in my mother and father's conversation
some nights i think i am cain
missing an abel more for never having held him

it's highschool recess and my best friend and i watch the seventh-graders
from our perch as 'older boys' with minimum-wage jobs and harder homework. one is handing around a gleaming can of monster energy like the blood of christ himself and everyone wants some. they treat the factory-issue can with such tender care, flushed fingertips on cold metal.

"why are they so excited about a monster?" i ask.

("what does it taste like?" a wide-eyed friend's younger brother asks.)

"because it's novel. it's their first taste of freedom." my friend says, and
then suddenly i remember all the times we've done the same with our friends.  

first, in an airport because me and my shaking hands couldn't finish it ourselves. outside school, warm from the flesh of someone's school bag all day. under the table and the teacher's nose because i stayed up too late, comuning with other friends in the blue dark. no matter who buys it's always for all of us.  

("have a sip"-"i don't like this one"-"the juice one is my favourite")

like maybe the 58g of sugar and 600mL of caffeine is okay if it's split between us. like the sharing of spit is holy. i look out at the small crowd of seventh graders and realise they are just beginning to learn:

what is communion if not half backwash?
what is holier than ingesting your friends?
what is holier than killing your hearts together?

Growing up, we know one day we'll die.

One single time.

They've never prepared us for when the first is not the last,
soul ripping out while we're still breathing.
A heart beats to the rhythm of what's now missing.

Darling, when you'll die a piece of me will go with you,
as I will mourn the deaths of both of us,
Until we will be reunited again in the endless oblivion