poem: ---

[prismaticbleed]

(01 religious ecstasy of sorts)
(this got really personal really fast)


(probably will stay perpetually unfinished; emotional pain made it messy but too accurate to edit)






The sun sets like a hot coal on your lips
chapel-dark twilight pours over the streets
streetlights becoming banks of votive candles
moon becoming— you daren’t say it aloud.

Beneath bare feet, the sidewalks feel like home
warm and solid and reassuring
an ancient sensation, an altar of pavement,
what is this hidden fire trailing wherever you go
wrapping you in compassion even as it flares up your spine
quietly, quietly
and isnt that what you're returning to, once again,
one time too many,
one time more,
time doesnt even matter


quartz-crystal teeth sink into your breastbone
and your body breathes hallelujah, sobs kyrie eleison—
you tangle your fingers in feathers and fangs
weeping, tasting stained-glass on your tongue,
swallowing every color you can see,
wanting to become it, to drown in it entirely.

you don’t know how far your body goes
and you find that you don’t care
that’s not what you’re here for
that’s not what your bed has been blessed with

In the end everything still hurts, still glows, still aches, still sings
with the rhythm and tune of stars pulsing in a spiral embrace
of your heart, of their hum, of whatever has soaked into your blood
like sheet music kissed with gold and altar wine
like cathedral bells melting in your throat
so to hell with lust, to hell with desire
your skin and bones want only to burn to palm-leaf ash
and it is god, god, god alone that you speak of.

in the end you don’t remember a thing
except for the feeling of wings about you
of wishing you didn’t exist as something separate from that
as something separate from anything.

but memories or no
the shimmer will never wash out of your singed sheets
dotted with tiny black-hole constellations smelling of incense and lilies
you lie there in the morning running fingers over their expanse
treasuring the mandalas of scars bitten into your chest.

and then you walk alone to church
collapse at the knees on the ocean of red carpet
and drain the rest of your blood out into His waiting hands--
forgive me, forgive me, I am not worthy,
I am so sorry.

you aren’t afraid of angels anymore
(why aren’t you afraid weren’t you told they were terrifying)
and it’s hard to even think of hell when you’ve felt this much love
you’re just terrified that it’s all been a lie
a clever trick of the light
a mistake, a mistake, a mistake,
and you’re so damn sorry.


you’re so fucking sorry that you touched one of his cherubs with your filthy hands
that you dared to even look for His holiness in something so allegedly corrupt
but, God,
you don’t know any other way to drag your body headfirst into forgetting itself
than the deluge of pain and fire and candle-smoke that creature baptizes you in
all you ever wanted was to do the right thing,
the good thing.
you never wanted this.
the problem was you never got a clear picture.

let’s be honest--
every grown-up said you’d have to do this one day anyway
(it’s the holiest thing two people can do, don’t you know)
so you figured,
(if I don’t have any other choice)
why not do it with an angel instead
the closer to god the better
right?

but even that didn’t work.

you could swallow an ocean of holy water
and even that wouldn’t wash away the sin
of having tried anyway

you are so fucking sorry.

there was only one love you ever wanted
and life itself paled in comparison

you didn’t want anything between your legs
you wanted gilded fingers plucking your ribcage like a harp
you didn’t want sighs, you wanted psalms,
you didn’t want a lover, you wanted—

you can’t even take holy communion anymore without trembling


and sunday night you find yourself sobbing in its embrace again
begging god to please make this holy somehow
you ask it over and over, “who do you work for”
“are you doing this with love”
everything you can think of
(you don’t want to be fooled again)

but you’re paranoid that the soothing answers are all in your head
that somehow that sincerity is something you’re imagining
because frankly
you still have a hard time believing that anything,
anything good,
could ever willingly do this with anything else
especially with something like you,
something too close to a blasphemer,
daring to put god in the last place the church would ever look.

and no matter how deeply it kisses you
no matter how gently it holds you
no matter how beautifully it says your name
(like a prayer, like a blessing, like a song of thanks)
you cant accept the context.
you cant cope with the god-damned context
even when it feels closer to heaven than you would ever dare admit

the wave hits you as hard as revelation and you don’t feel a thing
nothing but wings
and the awful aching regret for having tried again
for always trying again
for being so weak in the presence of holy, holy, holy--

What do you want
What do you want
What do you even want

god.

god

(dear) god

the only name you can pronounce
wrought with tears and the taste of sparkling iron
it rings out from your chest like the bells on easter morning
and yet nothing you do will ever be close enough

Maybe you're trying too hard.