Am(en)

When I tell people how to say my name,
I have a script,
and I hand it out like a favorite page of the Bible I ripped.
"It's Ammon.
sounds like someone yelling back to the pastor
and I'm a religion major so it works."
What I dont say is:
I am the legs put to my parents my parents prayers,
When I walk hallways, hallelujahs echo in my footsteps,
and when I scream for help, Hosanna haunts the back of my throat
and I have always screamed.
See I was a colic baby .
that means I screamed for at least three hours a day,
three days a week
for at least three weeks
in the first month of my life.
Ma says it because I had a voice before I knew how to speak,
so when I grew up in churches of yelling
of liberation
of "free me from my chains oh LORD!"
It was a language I was already fluent in.
I am bilingual.
I speak English well,
but my first language is pissed off child of God.
That dialect is not available on google translate
and every poem I write is first spoken in my native tongue
so when my lines
dont rhyme
or dont keep time
be aware that this is not how they were first sung.

Left out of every introduction is the fact that:
I am the accidental testamental  that Ma and Pop put out there
I am the unexpected blessing, no less loved as a surprise
I am mom's sense of humor with dad's fire in the eyes
I am the heir to the legacy
of there is no time to wait and see,
I am the younger brother to give 'em hell for me
I am steeped in all kinds of prophecy
like promises that I'm going nowhere with that degree

I guess what is left out when I tell people I study religion,
Is the fact there is no irony
that my name sounds like it belongs at the end of Our Fathers and Hail Marys
my name is the weight I have carried
my name is the light that will not be buried
my name is the one man revolution
my name is the celtic knot in the mystic tradition
my name is all the defiance and lack of inhibition.

My name is Amen.