I found myself hugging my closet this morning
I got up, walked over to her, stood in front of her and stuck my hands between some things hanging,
Put my cheek against the cold plastic of the hangers, and it felt right

Now this sounds strange
But something became quite clear to me when I felt like my closet was hugging back
It's not the things you wear, it's how you wear them
My closet loves me because I wear my clothes freely
I never wore them to please anyone else
That's why when he told me he wanted me to wear something else I said, "No."
Because my fashion is a part of me and it has been
Whether I was in the fourth grade, wearing my lily pad skort, pink Mary Janes and a neon green top
Or in college,
Unapologetically sporting my baggy white tee, ripped jeans, Birkenstocks and socks
I will not submit to you

My clothes love me back because I am not afraid
My closet hugs me back because she knows that I will never again let a man tell me
"That's ugly."
My fashion is my power.
Let it ring from every tower, you will not tell me what I can put on this body ever again
My body is my temple, and it was not built on your land so you can
Shove it

-E (c) 2017

Whats become of the creed, my brother?
People filling their coffers
with so much ***** coin
And filling their head
with empty irrationalities;
A temple of gold is no buidling
to atone their sins.
Oh why Oh why, cant they see
the cobwebs of dogma gathered
in their temple over the ages.
How do I see all this, my brother?
and they dont.
None of this was to be,
Not in the book that they swear on.
So lets stop waiting now,
No more prophets are coming now.
It is time, lets bring this diseased
temple of theirs down on them.
It is time, my brother,
for the gods to die now.
They need some new ones now
We build a promised land now
From the ruins of the old now.

The temple that we laid down
in our past is in ruins,
the goddess has evanesced,
I lay flowers at the feet
of our devotion,
I still pray, with silent hope
that you’ll come back
So we can rebuild
this religion,
that was
You and I.

You will be a chapter in the Bible of my life
And you
Will not fade from me
Because this body is a temple
And I am the god to which it is devoted:
When I am old I will trace the scars on my hands
As proof that I reached for something.
You may try to erase me.
You may even try to unmake me
But love and hate
Look so similar as scars
And thanks to yours we carry matching ones.
I will tell my stories, because they are mine to keep.
I will write about
The girl who made me afraid to walk the hallways of my own school
Her loathing for herself so complete that it swallowed me as well,
And I will shout my words
Because it is my right as a creature with a heart and a voice
And my duty as a human being.
I have led a violent life
Battered by a sea of people
Whose cowardice is stronger than their goodness.
But if I am silent about them
They'll **** me and say I deserved it.
If I am silent
Your threats worked
And you will continue to meet the world with your fear and your viciousness
And leave it uglier than you found it.
So I am here to say that
Whether you hate me or not
I am as sacred as you are
And my life
Is my own.
It is not my job to make you comfortable.
It is not my job to disappear
If you dislike what you see in me.
You don't own me.
You don't own my art.
You don't own my feelings.
You don't own my stories,
And you don't own what I do with them.

Let us sleep
like the staircase
that once led up to the Temple Mount
no longer able to carry pious feet to prayer,
but the well experienced cracks
over which they once walked
expose the heavy burden
of well worn memories
under which we now slumber.

Sunrise from Masada.
The view from the casemate wall
of Silva's camp below.
Shadowy ghosts
are cast and scattered
and given voice as the wind
shouts through the buildings ruins
L'-he-rut Zi-yon
and there is no reply.
Only the songs of the Tristramit
who mimic the voices
of every child martyred here, singing:
*Shalom al Ziyon, Shalom al Ziyon"
and there is no reply,
only the dreams of the interrupted
and the disturbed peace
of excavated ruins.

They say your body is a temple
but does that include the ones that are just a walking shell
scars and scabs
the ones that are a shaky skeleton
wavering back and forth while looking in the mirror
the ones that you think can blow away in the wind
the bodies that are unrecognizable
My temple is more of a ruin
A story of what used to lie
an open page with indescribable hieroglyphics
Nothing lasts forever

-

How do I put this delicately?
If my bodies a temple, defile me

With hands that grasp so gently
And teeth that graze so menacingly

Don't hold back, I beg of thee
Love me, love me, love me

Lay with me,
Sweet Poetry.

I prostrate myself
atop your holy temple,
amassing desperate yearning kisses
down your strong-legged pillars.

Weaving in and out of your corridors,
through the garden, your hair falling around me
like roots, like falling leaves--

But I dare not enter your hallowed chambers.

I am a ******, Sweet Poetry.

I have sauntered through the courtyard,
never the courts,
I have tread in the waters of your fountain,
never submerged in your bath,
I've danced around the holy fire,
but never touched my flesh to the healing flame.

Are the walls to your inner sanctum made of concrete,
or something impalpable?
My mind can play ***** tricks,
flagellating a million reasons why our love is for naught,
and why my body should shrivel and fade away before you.

I am a ******, Poetry,
and what love and demons I have in reserve,
I lay at your feet.

I'll linger if you'll stay,
sleeping sound at your side,
your breath on my skin,
your body warm against my shivering frame.

Pluck the maiden fruit from my aching tree,
lay with me,
Sweet Poetry.

for years I searched for new paths
  as if the only thing that really mattered
    was to get elsewhere as soon as possible

this shoreless thirst connects
    my little matter
                           with my oceans of dream

           everything breathes solvability

     and my mind creeps up
      only those walls that
          I cannot handle
      and lurks like an owl
       through your woods

over here you don't drink coffee
without some liquor

the temple was built
for naked dancers

and this love is my resource

my resource for some divinity