Learning to write again after an intermission with your identity,
is similar to searching for God after years of willingly
holding Satan’s tailcoats--
During this period of time, you’re made to suffer
gathering pieces of grace alone in the sparse woods,
knowing well it doesn't grow here, but this is where
he plunked you and it's a humiliating trick,
hoping to piece something together
that might look like holiness,
that might resemble being whole.
Suddenly you’re a walking lesson, for all of those people
the ones who might toy around with losing themselves,
giving up their gifts, their passions, devotions, faith--
they stumble past your naïve and gaping mouthed,
generally a finger protruding through the slobbery hole,
So what? They see you hanging strangely, uncomfortable
your neck not quite broken, your feet tingling with the explosion of blood,
so what they they’re watching you struggle for life--
God’s surely around the corner isn’t he,
A technician in this masquerade, this research study?
The problem is that he told me the safe word when I can back to him,
when I sat down and picked up my pen,
but I refuse to say it to him,
to show him the words that would make him look on me like a sick child,
I‘m the one floundering here, I‘m the one strung up and fucked wide open--
Theologically, the safe words are, “Forgive me.”
But I don’t beg,
and I’ll be God damned if I’m alive come morning.
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