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I am burrowing past the bits of spine
and lungflesh to bore a hole
into the core of my limping heart,
where I will huddle around muted limbs
and say,
Hello, heart. Haven’t seen you
since you were tiny and hadn’t learned yet
to beat on your own.
…I guess not much has changed, has it?
1.
Like every four-year-old
Catholic-Lutheran-Methodist-Baptist-Protestant,
I drank my grapejuice
before the blessing;
Communion.
2.
I can remember
really being baptized.
There are silvered dreams
of the man placing me in,
holding me under,
passing me through,forgetting his words.
3.
My mother searched
for the right church
instead of religion.
It was a race with crosses
as batons, and I
dropped mine entirely.
4.
One pastor was
a bigot, one priest
uninspired,
the reverend an
embezzler. One church
an ugly paint job, two worn
down and old.
5.
Father was a pagan
who found god his own
unspiritual way. I took all
my best qualities from him;
all my worst, too.
And still dusk digs in
its fingernails.
I am so many beads
on taut strings, but no one
knows how to use
an abacus anymore.
No matter where you turn,
there is always a ceiling
when you're in a box.
Some people find that
comforting.
Things I keep in me:
1.
Look at me from all angles,
I am a person composed entirely
of a turned-away back.
What shape is a heart? It is
the roundness of shoulders,
the scapula's heavy curve.
2.
I do not want. Full stop. Things
happen to me, are done
to me. Passively, I am defined. Passively,
I am worn. Passively, I am soothed.
I don't remember what desire means. I do not have
the desire to remember.
3.
Long hours replace long hours. Nothing
gets done. Long hours find me thinking
of long hours, ad infinitum. I have come to know
such a circling world. I have come to know
the damning pressure.
4.
So it is that repetition suits me.
5.
I spend a great deal of time sleeping.
Just that. Motionless, breathing
only lightly. I clench my teeth
till my jaw stiffens.
6.
And I wake up, again and again. I am
always asleep. I am always
waking up in order
to sleep.
With*
Learn how the General Board of Global Ministries,
The United Methodist Church and other United Methodist agencies, conferences, and local churches
are engaging in ministry with the poor
and how you can be a signpost
for the kingdom.
... is still God.
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