#baptism
Put me back in the water, I'll breathe it in,
For tears fill the water with angst and pain,
Bring forth sanctification for ready sin,
and through it might I live again
May 3
May 3, 2026 at 12:44 PM UTC
see the water glisten
like jelly, it quivers
in custody of foreign lands.
see the water swallow,
restraining my body.
all my life,
i’ve floated in uncertainty;
but now i’m held,
in complacent inevitability.
see the water mirror –
the deserted moon,
shining brighter, mightier,
than earth’s –
immortal, god sent
glorious diamonds.
see the water baptize
like alcohol, it cleanses
the past, the mistakes, and the regrets.
Feb 17, 2025
Feb 17, 2025 at 11:13 AM UTC
Place one hand on my shoulder
and guide my head under
You welcomed me to the world
so let me drown at your fault
Smile at me faintly as the waves
ripple over my eyes and fill my lungs
Like a babe being baptised
you hold the back of my skull
Now, not to keep me from drowning
but to show me your gentle touch
As my body erupts in panic, I flail
I feel your love
And for the slights you caused
I feel your sorrow
But I am too far gone, no longer
needing your hands to keep me afloat
Or to hold me under
Sep 11, 2024
Sep 11, 2024 at 6:43 AM UTC
bap·tism: an act, experience, or ordeal by which one is purified, sanctified, initiated, or named.
floating in the vacuous flow of time -
endless whispers and murmurs,
trying to figure out which thoughts are mine,
and which thoughts are planted by others.
overwhelmed by the idea of being perceived.
to relinquish control or to take control?
we are nothing but one individual
in the sea of billions.
who's to say that this is worth our time?
who's to say that we have purpose?
i need a baptism to purify, to sanctify, to initiate, to name myself.
to find purpose in this ocean of nothingness.
Aug 10, 2024
Aug 10, 2024 at 3:55 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall HSG
[email protected]
The Baptism of Valaria Elizabeth
At the Altar
The young couple presented their first-born
Valaria Elizabeth, wrapped in a silvery gown
A happy child at play in the holy Jordan
At the Altar
Valaria Elizabeth, delightful in herself
Was glorious in white with many colors trimmed
And skillful stitchings as befit a queen
At the Altar
Someone asked Valaria’s dear mother
Did you craft this gown with love and thread?
“No, I bought it just yesterday,” she sweetly said
Welcome with love, Valaria Elizabeth!
Jun 3, 2024
Jun 3, 2024 at 12:58 PM UTC
split mind
dichotomy between my head and feet
running away, leave towards the sea
explore the depths, explore me
the shore is suffocating and time is draining
my ankles feel burdened carrying all this dead weight
let me float into the unknown
let me scream at the waves
let me unfold
let me be reborn again
Feb 27, 2023
Feb 27, 2023 at 7:55 AM UTC
I'm not all that good,
I'm not all that bad,
Maybe one day,
I'm as bad as a person can be,
Maybe on another day,
I'm one of the best you can meet,
Raised in a small town,
Where people gossip
from sun up to sun down,
Brought up poor in a broken
family, only added more,
When I'm out and about,
I get those judgemental stares,
with whispers of, "she's hopeless,
she's beyond repair,
I get worked up so
I purposely give them a reason to
gasp for air,
Of course they all claim to be Christians,
The type that choose clean blue water
to be baptised in,
But I was baptised in muddy water
and I'm glad to say," hey listen up,
I was baptised in muddy water so
I guess that makes me too ***** for
your kind?"
Then I smile to myself because
I know something they must not,
JESUS WAS BAPTISED IN MUDDY
WATERS, as well.
I imagine it kind of went like this:
Upon meeting Jesus, John said: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? I imagine Jesus told John it was only right to do so, I can imagine John trying to convince Jesus to at least let him find cleaner waters but Jesus knew so He refused.
You see in the time of Jesus’s baptism, the Jordan river and surrounding areas was no less than now, a river full of muck, ***** muddy, and gross looking, you can’t see two inches into it today nor could you then.
These very people called Christians are the same people who judge so harshly, through the centuries they've compared Jesus's baptism to our own, with an understandable preference for the clear waters of a Blue Hole over the muddy waters of the Jordan and beyond,
So yeah, I'm all messed up in the head,
Better the head than the heart,
But you've already judged my part.
So if you ever run out stuff to gossip about, just think back and remember,
the small town girl that was baptised in muddy water.
- Author Ven J Arnold / SacredInkedBlood
Apr 26, 2022
Apr 26, 2022 at 11:50 PM UTC
you hold me under the water
until my lungs scream out for air
you know i cannot hold my breath forever,
don't you?
you hold me under the water
in a perverse baptism
the one i worship delivers me to death
you hold me under the water
one hand buried in my hair
the other firmly on my neck
i have no choice but to choke
you hold me under the water
and i do not struggle to break from your grip
you were always stronger than me
and a part of me has always wanted this
you hold me under the water
and fill my mouth with the sea
i swallow, even as i know
to drink is to die
you hold me under the water
gently, as a lover would
it won't be long now
before i become one with the ocean
i am aware that you are speaking to me
but i cannot hear you over the crashing of the waves
when your work is finished and you wade away
there will be no blood on your hands
May 5, 2021
May 5, 2021 at 6:16 PM UTC
I saunter parallel to these pews,
dragging my fraying fingers along the tops.
Reaching for a wooden comfort, but
instead I’m pricked.
I shake the splinter and splutter the blood off.
Wearing my head high, I finish my descent
up the holy steps.
My mother stands,
stuck
looking past me and out the stained window,
letting it strike her into a silhouette.
The priest exclaims
New Beginnings!
My mother
matches his declaration two seconds too late.
My dad nods his head,
the final vote of the jury locked in.
With guilt and god on my side,
I take the holy plunge.
My head falls in,
harshly.
I’m aching for a numinous experience,
only to suffocate from the darkness
that comes with this reality
I will breathe into.
My head may be under the aquatic illusion of renewal
but my feet stay planted on the
fractured ground.
I am forced to look past the daze of illusion.
Because in the light
I can clearly see the greys left in our destruction.
I look back and my finger has bled
all over the back of this dress.
New Beginnings!
I exclaim,
with a red stain grained into my backside,
but an empty canvas in the front.
With my hair slicked back I hear a
mumble.
You look just like your mother,
And maybe I do
hold her eyes
but I can see
what she can not.
The graying dreams that my parents are dis alluded to.
Their skeletons in the attic or the
boxes of dresses in the basement,
even though today I wear one.
I will look at the destruction created behind us
and not walk with them.
Because in this holy light
her eyes bask and only look
chocolate at its best.
And in this dim shadow
mine shine like amber honey.
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 11:13 PM UTC
halo, halo
flooded by musky greens
that wipe out the bitterness
to your taste
hands tight on my waste
and lifting me
to sit on a shredded pillow
the window open
the walls damp
the chill once again comforts me
embracing an icy touch
you cut my hair
a head of bleach falls to the floor
my black roots remain
fragile breaths come from the trees
awakening once more
creeping their branches into the room
creeping under my tunic
the sky clears and I am soft
the pillow empties of its feathers
removing the inside
releasing the weight
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 11:23 AM UTC
breaking up is like getting baptized
it's like becoming brand new
you were the sinner and I was Jesus
ready to forgive you
we'd say some words
and cry some tears
until things were okay
i dunked you under water
washing the mistakes you've made away
but there's a problem with new beginnings
the ending is the same as it was before
being forgiven for everything
is just reason to sin more
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 2:06 PM UTC
Death is my decision
Not theirs
They act oblivious to what I scream
Each words spun in reverse to the next morning
Silence
It slithers down halls
Devouring my mind
Slowly consumes
Rage insues
Chanting the same words
Barely breaching the skin
Each voice a hum
Rotted of sin
Take my life
Do not give it back
Signal the archways
Mask the stone crack
Hopefully hopeless
Nothing will last
Each word a distant
Each promise resistant
As mourning rises
The sun sweeps a day
Returning to rain
Wash the blood away
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 9:54 PM UTC
“Jade, I am not crying”
“Never, your eyes are just running
...
You’re glowing though.”
“You’re glowing too. You know”
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 6:36 PM UTC
The bright blue bottle hit me like a hint of death
on the breath of Spring.
I imagined it being tossed out a truck window
by underage teens fancying themselves clever
and mature and immortal
as if the earth had willed upon them
that her stolen treasure, Aluminum,
be returned or she’d cause their truck keys
disappear for all eternity.
I picked up the blue bottle
tried to feel resurrection
in a recycling sort of way
felt instead only the hollow emptiness
of mindless eternal reincarnation.
Winter had been long this year and lately
I fantasized resurrection more than usual
at a field where I stopped to listen to meadowlark and field sparrow calling for mates or alerting everyone to the sin of the blue bottle.
Several deer grazed the unseen first greens of Spring near skunk cabbage and coltsfoot.
At a small stream, I cupped my hand into the icy fast water and raised it to my lips, then splashed my face, then splashed some more, more,
then knelt, both knees at the streambed and submersed my face and head,
in self-inflicted baptism
for my own blue bottle sins,
opened my eyes, exhaled all my blue bubbles, for the longest of repentant moments,
pulled out of the water
gasping the holy Spring air
for dear life
and thereafter walked each step
in the garden of resurrection.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 9:25 PM UTC
Lightning
with fiery shades of wrath
woven into its shards
ripped the horizon,
dived into the ocean
to its depths of sedimented pretensions,
baptised it with drops of sulphurous fire,
to a cleansed conscience.
The ocean rose up in a high tide of exuberance,
escorted me to its depths
for the drop of sulphurous fire to baptise me,
to give my yearnings the shape of a flame
that puts my soul on fire.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 4:20 AM UTC
i find these days
i'm burning out at both ends
a loneliness is melting my insides
memories pooling like wax at my wicker cased feet
i blow and gasp, desperately trying to save my liquid soul
from pouring through cracks that aren't shown to blind eyes
someone, please
quench this flame
pour water over the embers of my being and baptise me into a new light
in which i know an answer, not shown by pain
but shown by a sense of true serenity
Apr 13, 2018
Apr 13, 2018 at 1:44 AM UTC
I cannot cry much
So I do cherish the chance
To baptize myself
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 3:59 PM UTC
The sunset's light bathes me like the christening I never received as a baby,
when my flesh was still new and still soft and still;
when the first pulses of pain had not yet rang through my tender heart;
when the first rays of sun had not yet wrinkled my mother's skin;
when the thrumming, buzzing world around me had not yet made my small hands shaky.
I feel the light wash over me but I am blinded by the glare,
my impromptu baptism ending as the sun Himself realizes I am far too gone for any semblance of redemption.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I know; perhaps if my parents then saw me ******
saw me now, every dispicable thing about me now,
they would've pushed me under the water as a child, said a prayer and held me there.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
I arrive at this rebirth,
a long-awaited taxi pulling up
in a winter’s downpour.
I called this cab years ago,
at that first tiny self hatred
that started it all:
When I stepped on that caterpillar
outside Ms. Harris' class.
The cab arrives at a party.
Small mouths pry:
What do you do?
Heavy brows furrow at:
I forgave myself today.
Strangers ask me my name but
I don’t know what it is so
I dive into the pool
and suddenly everything
is muffled and at peace,
and I am discovering the joy
of my hands
outstretched in the water.
This must be *******
colors pulse
touches ******
bird songs are Vivaldi,
or maybe this is just
what it’s like
to clasp my hands
to hear the rain
to think one single mundane thought
without shame.
I hail another cab,
but this time my sins
are huddled in the back seat.
They gaze up at me
with familiar pleading eyes.
They caress my cheek
with skeleton fingers.
It’s time to go home
and watch the Price is Right
like we always do.
They are hurt
that I went anywhere
without them.
I stroke their oily hairs
and hold them
as we fall asleep.
But when I come to
they’ve faded away
and I awake
embracing myself.
Dec 12, 2017
Dec 12, 2017 at 11:21 PM UTC
i want someone to cradle me
someone to bathe my body of myself
someone to run a warm washcloth over my hips and wash away the hurt.
to cluck soothingly.
or be silent.
to take my hands in theirs and guide them away from me.
bend over me in the bath
i am helpless
a child in a woman's body
scrub my back.
get a mug from the kitchen and use it to pour the water over my head like some sort of baptism.
i dont care if the shampoo gets in my eyes
I'll keep them shut.
It will sting like going back in time
once your arms tire of dipping, filling, and pouring again and again,
give me your hand and i will get out.
I'll hold the towel close.
hugging it around my arms like some sort of bat when it sleeps
only im not really upside down
the water will drip from my hair onto the tile.
I will shiver and it will be welcome.
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 1:19 PM UTC