I used to believe in love never leaving,

It'd stay through the season, endure any treason, 

Persist through all reason and always be pleasing.

But love is not that, at least not always

It can be pretty yes, but brutal in all ways,

it can burn the rest of you out, like acid in your veins.

It can be a balm for some pains,

but also like salt in an unhealed wound. 

I don't know the origin of that classic idiom;

'It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all'

I am relatively sure, that its originator had not in fact loved and lost after all.

Because who would take the pain of certainty over unknowing serenity?

I would rather have a hopeful bliss of ignorance of the futures eternity. 

I wonder is their anything more hopeless than surety? 

 As a child, I would often proudly proclaim I would never smoke.

I would say "The body is a temple, and shouldn't be stained by THC and nicotine."

As though priest and shaman alike have not reverence for the sacred power of smoke stained air. 

Nowadays, I'd say the oxygen that was once sweet in my mouth has soured.

I'd say I see a little too clearly, and could use the grace of obfuscation. 

I could weep rain and craft clouds with little more than breath and intention. 

Yet the holy wind within me remains undiminished,

I can cleave it, as sharp as a knife if need be,

I smother it with lip and lung,

I shape it with tooth and tongue.

Yet it ever trembles in my chest demanding release,

Sometimes it escapes in squeaking stuttering struggle

Sometimes it seems to only return in anguish. 

But this cycle of repeated release

Vibrato born of storm shaken passion,

Could be called singing.

Or weeping.

or both. 

  To the pastors, preachers and Christians who fucked up my Christian identity 

1. God damnit, I needed that.

2. I hope that the cuss made you cringe

3. My mama did it better anyways

4. My dad told me never to get cute when someone selling you something 

5. I won't let you take it. 

6. I'm still working out how this works, where to put faith with works, helping bodies off of crosses, rolling rocks away from tombs, resurrecting every day, getting played anyway, getting payed doesn't pay and I still have things to say.

7. You made sanctuaries unsafe, altars ready to take my blood, poison community and artificial communion, I'm calling habeus Corpus Christi, show me the body of Christ , I can't hear the hymn through Caesars sound system, I drink unholy amounts of wine, I don't trust men of God, holy words hold a lot of hot air, show me some holy legs and dirty feet. Walk on my street. See how many Jesuses you meet.

8. I don't trust other people to tell me about God anymore. They don't know what she looks like.

9. I'm still worried I disappoint God most of the time. 

10. I spent four years and too much money trying to find the mustard seeds in the horse shit you handed me, left school with a story and a voice and I know of one book that holds a lot of other books that are filled with stories of people with voices who told truth when no one wanted to hear it so I guess you can call my critique a pathetic  prophetic witness.

11. Because 10 points wasn't enough to get right after the seven years you took from me.

12. Because I met more than a dozen disciples who have convinced me there is something here.

13. How dare you take that I hold most precious turn it rotten round the edges, make me wanna cut cancer crosses out of my ideology, give me a faith biopsy, find malignant mustard seeds growing in my chest and I'm to scared to pluck them cause what if nothing ever grows back?

14. Jesus forgive me for every time I skipped church on Sunday to pray with smoke signals tryna get high enough to reach heaven from my basement. 

15. I still believe in God, even if it hurts sometimes. 

16. I still freeze up when I hear worship music.

17. I've been lied to so often by people I trusted that pulpits have lost the benefit of the doubt.

18. You made me hate myself, cut out parts of my personhood, you stopped me from putting razors to my arms and took your incisions to my identity.

19. I don't know who I am without God, I don't who God is when other people are around, and I read the Holy Spirit comes when as few as two of God's followers stop to pray, and I'm no math wiz but there's got to be a reason our prayers echoed like mourners in an empty tomb.

20. I'm jealous of your zealotry, I lost that with my dignity, I never wanted to carry this much enmity, I'm all about safety. Put safeties on red letter guns, cause a man with a book of books can do terrible things with an untrained eye, which ain't the same as unstained eye. Plus I heard we all had wood in our shit anyway, but you got a couple folks who would spend everyday, checking pupils for splinters, knocking on folks doors in both summers in winters trying to sell us slivers insurance for the cost of a tiny tithe every Sunday, we'll get the log out of your eye so you can see it our way. 

21. I tutored folks in how best to really read the Bible, ask questions at every turn, when Ma talks you listen, don't get cute with salesmen, check your sources, takes some courses, hold your horses, don't let them carry you away. I told them all the things I ever parroted all the hate that I inherited so that if you came for them they could at least see you coming, get out of your way quicker than I did. 

An Honest Accounting

 Yesterday, I vaulted over mountains, skipped over rivers and found myself on the other side.

Immediately I was lost, for the horizon's framing was no longer my home.

No setting sun to flee from, no moonrise to rescue me,

All the stars were stolen, all the lights were golden, and none of them could touch me. 

I imagined myself a void, and was shocked to become empty.

With no one to avoid there was also no one to envy.

With only me myself and I, I was able to sift through the memory,

I found that the edges of that time were not held up by mountains of lies, 

but instead were bound by twin rivers of grief that streamed from my own eyes. 

Eventually my weeping cleared the scales, I adjusted the moral of my own tales.

Soaring through cycles and the ducking both the scythe and the sickle.

I imagine that is how rivers start, first as an icicle-- 

then warmed by an ever returning sun that melts ice and promises freedom.

A promise even the son can't deliver from the demons. 

Our chains are our choices, our liberation leaps from our voices.

So we must scream and make demands of not only heaven, 

but of each other. Break the chains, then break ourselves

find that the bread of the body is not indivisible 

Set hurriedly into repair but find the shattered pieces

never fit together like they did when they were unsevered.

And if all that remains is broken, 

and cannot be fixed with simple words spoken

then we have found ourselves past point of hoping.

Aspirations become delusions when untethered from the earth,

but if the torn parts within our hearts still have worth,

then maybe we can knit them together.

share my pitted mind with your broken heart

create a new kind of art.

A tapestry of of sophistry where every lie contains a truth,

a love that is reminiscent of our youth

where we could believe in things that were less than whole,

I mean after all isn't that the goal?

Find the best part of myself is inside of you,

find the strength you lost in me 

drink it down like lukewarm tea,

where the heat of fire is little more than memory. 

find some things remain bitter in spite of honey,

and some folks remain broke in spite of money,

but nobody's perfect so why bother the rejects

let people live in the imperfection of their flaws

let people be free despite the intention of laws. 

Bottoms Up

A madman inside me rages, I am so alone

The madman succeeds and so I must atone.

The child in me whimpers, he just wants to help,

the mother in me doesn't recognize the child as her whelp.

Love yourself as though you were my child

Love yourself in green and gold and good and wood and wild

Love yourself in magic spells, that maybe could be true,

love yourself in secret messages in your least favorite hue.

Love yourself in stories that you edited for fun

love yourself in broken streets that are no less fun to run. 

Love yourself with safety for you and all the other yous

love yourself like you would love you if you met you in passing

Love yourself without remorse and don't let the past sting

love yourself in letters written on someone else's behalf

Love yourself in wisdom and know you're not the chaff 

I have loved and could always love anyone this way

except of course for me myself, at least not for today

I'm seeking transcripts from a mind that wont take notes

See if we were real or what was our deal 

cause codependent's such a small word

And if it is a diagnosis, is this a life long affliction my critical addiction?

It seems my hole was never full, and yet since I left its feels more empty.

If art can only come from abundance, why does every song draw blood?

Who am I to say who is and is not a stud. or a dud. or a bud, but probably not with bubbly. 

I talk backwards to myself sometimes because my brain doesn't like doing what its told

sometimes my fingers need to grab my conscious from my soul, and smoke a bowl knock the me out of me so I can see what I could be if hated myself a little less took the hit and had a guest at my own personal me fest. Or me feast, sometimes everyone's eyes look hungry. I'm sure mine are starving. 

When I try to write prose

 I am always too long winded, every sentence is run on. Sometimes my words dont rhyme, sometimes my heart can't keep time. Sometimes I write with my breath held within me. Like I could lose the thought by breathing it out. This is a stream of consciousness that flows like a river, or rolls in like the tide, whats the worth of time and why can't I abide? Have your thoughts ever been so heavy that they could no longer be carried, that you would say to anyone "what if we married? maybe you have some space on your back for the yoke of my problems?" This is why I don't date. To quote my favorite Fiona Apple song, I thought I was a man, but I'm just a little boy. Everyone is smarter than me, everyone has twice struggle and they carry it without trouble, so I must be the troubled. Everyone else has popped their bubble, so together they might together huddle, but the inside of my thoughts smells like beer stains and dope. It smells like I lost my hope. But I do hope, and pray, every day. I send smoke signals to lovers and old friends, dont you want to see how this one ends? Sometimes I think moms are the only ones patient enough for me. Maybe something about the indescribable pain and relief of giving birth connects them to this earth. Fathers don't occur naturally, they are beings of choice, but I doubt I'll ever choose myself. I lack the wealth to care for humans how they deserve to be cared for, and so do so many, but they choose to bring that life anyway. I never want to hurt anyone, so why does my mom cry at my words, why does she always choose birds. Is it cause before me she could fly, maybe when she's alone she still can, but locked herself to three men whose feet are frozen to the ground. Who better to raise a bastard that grows like a dastardly weed. Some of the best people I know are bastards, such that the word has never been an insult. I couldn't comprehend why someone would choose not to love someone for an accident of birth, we just don't have enough time on this earth, to let the barriers we made on our own divide us. I came out to my grandmother and she asked me what bi meant, and I told her the truth and she sent me a gift of memories, her own way of telling me she sees and still believes. If magical thinking doesn't work, how is it that I've tricked me into loving myself again, or wait is that conceited, I'm sorry I thought that was what I needed, but maybe I'm the type that always needs more, an emotional whore, selling my feelings for pennies and nickels, never worried about the reaper's sickle. I'd love to be more than what I am, but want to believe that what I am is enough, I promise I'm not tripping over green stuff, unless I'm running through the woods, but I rarely run anymore, most often I walk, I've got time enough to talk, I whine enough to write, and if my meds were right I'd sleep at night, dreaming of you instead of staring at the ceiling yearning for you. I tried to count the ways in which I was right today, not correct but morally erect. If someone told me there day and had done what I had done, I'd convince them they were one of the best, so why do I feel guilty every time my body rests. How am I condemned by my own pride, yet feel as though no one's on my side. It's so much easier to hide. When you're capable of loving everyone, everyone fears what the love you offer means, is it a door into my castle, or just a peak behind the scenes. I flinch when love is offered, but ask for it all the time, I know I can't drink this away, but I'd love to try with wine.

Frozen Nights

Tonight it’s so cold that the clock has frozen over                                                                             I keep waiting for the second hand trick

My breath abated 

my brain sedated 

and yet I guess my soul is lit

Like lights left on to stave off a barely dark night

Like long trusted street lamps obscured by encroaching snow

I shut my eyes tight and try to listen the world breathe, 

and when she does my house shakes from the passage of her sigh

Flurries spin in fury but only grow colder for it, 

wasn’t air in motion supposed to be warmer

Have the physicists lied or was I simply blind 

I have on occasion wondered if I fell could a strong enough wind catch me

If I went and dived today is it my last or first dog that would fetch me

Guide me through the end of my life to whatever lies beyond

Maybe I’ll meet god, 

and if she’s disappointed in my works 

than I guess that’ll make two of us,

And maybe she’ll send me back, or maybe she won’t 

“I gave you thirty years and you’ve spent them on the phone”

My own self doubt lingers like a bruise upon a bone 

Sometimes my feet hurt just from looking down

Sometimes my back hurts looking at the weight of my own frown 

So I avoid mirrors, I’m starving myself for enlightenment I’ve already found

Everyone loves someone or something more than they love themselves

That’s not a super power it’s a sign that you’re in hell

But I’ve never met a devil who didn’t want to dance, 

Or a song that doesn’t switch if given half a chance 

Sometimes I fall asleep to words, 

some nights I need a screen,

Shower shadows on the wall so I don’t vent my spleen,

Took a pill to fall asleep but I’m awake as shadows creep

Is it possible to be broken beyond repair 

cause if so how many of us are simply cracked all the time?

I used to joke about where the sun don’t shine,

Now I wonder if the sun itself is running out of time

It’s colder every year except for when it’s hotter 

How’d you send my mom some sons 

when you knew she wanted daughters