i talked to god
on the edge of a cliff.
at the canyon’s bottom
was a beautiful river.
“L’APPELDUVIDE!”
i cried out to him.
“this is everything you wish to be,”
he responded.
 
i saw god
in the spaces between her teeth.
he smiled mockingly,
tantalizingly,
daring me to pull the trigger.
fulminating lips, vehement
a deafening flash.
he was brilliant
and gone in a second.
 
i felt god while laying hands on myself.
vengeful,
wrathful,
omnipotent,
everpresent.
amour de soi,
or
amour-propre?
the pursuit of perfectionism.
succeed,
or die trying.
 
i smelled god
on my mother’s Marlboro Lite fingers, after my
          tenth birthday
when she held my face
and kissed me goodbye.
i smelled him
in the stale Spirits on my father’s breath,
thick with Deep Eddy’s
and fleeting potential.
 
i tasted god when i licked the blood dripping from
          ​my wounds.
animalistic. untamed.
god is cruel
because he doesn’t know
of the human condition
and he doesn’t know what it’s like
to love
 
and lose
 
and l o s e
 
and l  o  s  e
 
A N D L O V E A G A I N .

when i finally met god i was on my knees.
mouth frothing,
eyes wide.
He looked like an angel
and i was desperate for salvation.
holy penance.
for once i was not begging and crying but pleading,
salivating,
drunk on desire and consumed by lust
crying out for my Creator.
levity.
no more suffering.
holy ecstasy.

my mind sharp, my body Divine.
i am learning how
to forgive;
how to drag fingers
across my skin, gently,
in the place of razors.
i am learning how to slip through the door quietly,
without slamming fingers on the way out;
how to let the cruelty pass
without skinning me alive.

to touch, to hold,
to scream into the void.
to love and lose and laugh and live,
to languish.
less than evil, more than human.
self devotion oozing off my tongue.
righteous.
i, am my own religion.