Somewhere beneath the broad darkness
and the landslide, there’s a pocket
of nothingness, like the air bubbles
that oxygenate red wine. And somewhere
inside that, there I am,
mime-hands loving Stevie Smith
and all she stood for. A void
is just a void, and a poem
is just a poem, no matter how
you read it. You can bring this
into the church and line it up with the stained glass,
looking for a hidden meaning,
but I know this nothingness intimately,
like I know soft skin and the taste of *****,
and there is nothing to be found in there
that isn’t already inside you, except
maybe warmth and candlelight
and the idea that nothing is too far gone
to not be saved anymore. Sometimes,
I think people intentionally obscure what they mean,
like they’re not good enough for a line break,
and like it’ll be easier to rationalise being left behind
if they were limping from the start of the race
anyway. Anyway. Sorry about this;
sorry about all of this, I just really like how it looks
when you try to work any of this out.
Because it looks dismal. It looks like a pregnant
sundial churning out another day,
another day that might be Sunday,
but it also might not. It’s not like I know.
I think this stopped being a poem a few lines ago
and started being something to burn, instead,
but you can take the smallest of lighters
to the mightiest of Goliaths and they’ll scream
all the same. I heard that lobsters scream
if you put them in boiling water whilst they’re still alive.
I feel like that sometimes.
I don’t know if I’m the lobster or the water,
most days. I think I know now.
I think I know something, now,
at least.

The woman’s width is claimed by God;
milk and blood mingle into love,
and the King of Kings is crowned in the birth canal.
Invite all the strangers to gawk,
their gifts garish and presented with condition -
she will, one day, be an afterthought,
not a second, but a fourth.

She will gather with those who will one day mourn
alongside her, her hands fresh salt
and the rest of her the wound.
It was never a choice that came willingly,
but from Ophelia to Monroe
she will be remembered how men wish her to be.

When her face appears in streams and mirrors,
know that only the reflection has power -
she has plucked the cord from between the mountains
and now her womb will glisten,
slick with sweat and blessèd water,
in the fifth layer of the eternal Heaven she was promised.

The woman, with her limbs and eyes and cracking bones,
is supposed to rise, but the writing stops
after the men have played their little game of execution,
and scholars pick up the pieces
of the heavenly woman of Revelation,
grasping at umbilical straws for a meaning to what she gave.

Thin bible pages are dedicated to her lithe form,
her childbearing hips that filled out with the grace of God,
for Joseph’s carpenter hands to carve and clench
and give him cuckoo-sons,
but he is Joseph, and he can shout louder than she,
and raise hell to the Heavens
if he wants to.

She, fruit-bearing mother,
is only taken ****** to Heaven
because there was an angel
who requested something to pass the time.

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?

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a pillar. Call it yours.

Hello, Cain. Have you heard of shared glory?
I don’t think you have; that’s okay,
neither have I, for I am the One,
and nothing can take that from me.

You wish to be this way?
I have told you;
here is perpetual stone,
you have all the tools necessary.

Necessary for what?
For legacy.
For eternity.
Baby, hold onto me.

Angel, that’s what you’ll be,
baby, darling, mine,
take the stone
like man who lies with man.

What? I have betrayed you?
You should know this.
My love is Abel,
my love is not yours to give.

Unless, of course,
you want to take it from me.
Yes, that’s it,
take the eternal stone.

This is the history you want to craft.
Violent, ******,
and completely, utterly,
yours.

You are man.

You are named as such.

Here is stone.

Build a legacy.

Hate it; call it yours.

He puffs out his chest and takes up space for two,
long before the temple is destroyed.
Nobody has told him ‘no’ in a long time,
and nobody has ever taught him how to be humble.
This is where he stands, tending his animals,
spitting and swearing and squaring up to the pigs,
his face ballooning in redness, all the majesty
of colour given to him alone by God.

His masculinity is ripe with each slain animal,
domesticated and reared for sacrifice to please another,
another man, for whom pride is not a virtue.
Nobody has ever taught him how to be wrong,
and so he is never wrong, right up until the moment
when the stone is in his hand and the blood is on the stone
and the brother is in the blood and the history is given to the brother.

For the whole of time, there has been the trinity,
and with four alive, it was simple maths of which brother
must be cut down. The strong must **** out the kind,
and Cain will go down fighting one day,
but not today. Today, there is a victor, and a title,
and a promise ripped from the heart of the father
that nobody will hurt him the way he hurts.

It is the stone that cycles back,
like rainwater or bad luck or the static feeling
of something going very wrong.
These men do not lie, they deceive,
and Cain was granted protection,
until his house fell down
and his body, under the rubble,
for the very first time,
knew the communion
of what it is like to lose.

They said it was only prisoners’ flesh
that lions want to eat,
and I’m remembering that, when you,
named as Mary,
bear down upon me and I gasp,
pleasure-filled and psalm-sick.

Who is Daniel?
And moreover - do we care?
You tell me to stop thinking so much,
and that’s alright,
I’ll stop thinking at all
if it pleases you.

It pleases me.

Your soft lips, arching,
pounding stones for those who have never sinned,
I beg you to embalm me this way forever,
and you laugh -
you tell me that nothing is permanent.

I am crying.

The den is filled with misty tomorrows,
and yesterdays that I will have to confess,
but I cannot bring myself
to bring testament to you,
and make real the blood from your Eve-flesh,
because if it is not real,
it is not mine.

Can I deal with that?

Oh, Daniel is knocking at my door, now.
I will let him in,
and this is goodbye
to the giant of my love
that cannot swell further in my heart
for fear of aneurysm
or breaking.

Darling, please tell me which head you want on a platter,
and I’ll bring it to you. Don’t love him, please,
don’t love him, love me instead,
yes, I’ll decapitate myself if it means you’ll kiss my dead lips,
and please, love me until I die,
it’ll be an honour for a mouth like yours to mourn for me,
but please, don’t mourn for me.

I’m nothing in terms of you,
but I want you to remember me,
if only through the candles in the church,
from which my face burns in selfish wonder,
asking you if you’ve read my autobiography yet, and what you
thought of what I had to say,
don’t mourn for me.

Silver feels so sweet against my flesh,
so cool, like the pools of water
in which I sink myself,
waiting to drown like it’s the only thing that matters,
like all I can do is **** saltwater violently,
and I love you violently,
please, I love you,
but don’t mourn for me.

I wonder how you’ll cut my head off,
whether you’ll use a knife or a sword,
or the switchblade with dried blood that I showed you;
yes, I’m laying claim to this,
and yes, I’m begging you to use my own weapons against me,
but I’ll die anyway.
Let me have this,
but please,
don’t mourn for me.

Can I beg?
Can I ask you to **** me,
so that I can pretend it was my choice
to be lying here,
pale and emaciated,
kissing the knife against my neck,
calling you vampire,
calling you mine,
calling myself baptist, but lover,
don’t mourn for me.

I’ll call cool waters home,
I’ll think of the ocean,
and I’ll think of you,
and I’ll craft a manger from all of this dust,
because that’s all I’ll ever become
as long as you, Salome,
never mourn for me.

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.

I remember dying, Father.
I remember it like it was yesterday,
because it was,
when you told me to save them,
and I saved them,
and then they told me I was you,
and I’m confused.

I remember it well,
the pounding of nails into flesh,
tingling in my heart;
I love another,
who is not you,
but could be
given the right light,
and opportunity.

I remember the pain,
sinking across palms,
and I beg for you
not to create any more stigmata
for the fallen;
I thought you loved them.
They do not deserve this.

I remember believing in you,
unwavering faith,
and I remember having all of that
choked into my neck muscles,
spasming to gasp for air
like crucifixion, again,
and I remember you.

Father, I remember you.
Do not think for a Heavenly moment
that I can ever forget
the role you pushed me into.
I remember your burning angel-eyes
and I breathe silently at Passover
so that my presence is unknown.

I remember what I am supposed to do.
I am supposed to save them,
to save them,
isn’t that what you sent me here for?
Just another errand
on your long list of people to sacrifice,
but I am here to save them.
even if that means
using your blood for my resurrection.

Let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how scarred they are;
how the callouses seep
into flesh, become part of me,
rubbing circles underneath the hood
of my uvula.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,
and how they’re only the starting point
for throwing up apples,
golden, red, green,
bitter and sweet,
all of them mine, to be choked
back into me.

So let’s talk about Mary-birds,
and the sacrifices they make
for their children,
and in doing that, let’s talk about *****
and how beautiful the sheen
of afterbirth looks in the toilet bowl,
and how often self-destruction
tastes like sacrifice on the way back up.

So let’s talk about my knuckles,
again, and the visceral scraping
against teeth,
and how much it feels like giving up
to not sit by the toilet
waiting for a sign
that this is somehow enough.

So let’s talk about being good enough,
and how I’ll never feel that way
until my knuckles mingle
with milk-white bone,
and how the rows of pews
are pearlescent,
tainted yellow,
with smoke and bile.

So let’s talk about talons,
and vultures, and everything that happens
after death, and let’s talk about
how one day the sea will swallow us whole,
and let’s talk about the belly of the beast,
and let’s talk about Jonah,
and oh - sorry - the sermon is over,
and the priest is taking confessions,
so let’s not talk
anymore.