is god the cat that chases you for fun, someone who pretends benevolence, flicking you away only to sink teeth into your neck while you hold out a begging hand? a cat with a mouse in its mouth. i see, i see, i see.
in thine eyes i saw god and not as the reflection of myself but something i can touch, something that dies— someone i can kill. someone i could love. these knees have dropped, on cold dirt ground, on wooden floor: century-old, on marble floors that make them ache. in thine hands, i’ve left my life and my heart, my soul that was drug back from hell. hands, eyes, smile, light. your wings i crushed like a cruel boy with a dragonfly at the onset of spring. lavender-scent, the smell of my mother’s perfume and it all reeks of a prayer that never ends. i need you, like the steady weight of a gun in my unsteady hands. like the clean water that washes off this blood off my hands yet never fully cleans it. not enough for absolution or forgiveness. i need you like the cedar brown drink. no, i needed you like it. now, i need you like the smell of fresh air on a sober morning. a thumb caressing my own on a winter evening and everything in between.
if god was a cat with a mouse that he chooses to kill then i’m a vine, hugging you close in devotion, in ruination. trying to touch everything you and yet never being able to reach all of you. too less, too little to know you truly but never quittin’ the attempts. so, i will pray to you. the only true sign that god exists. his cruelty is proof enough but your unsmiling lips and your smiling eyes are a better proof of the fact that he was capable of beauty and he poured it all into you. the hands that are gentler than the light of the early morning sun, the voice that could make hell tremble and yet softly call my name. my name feels less like a punishment and more like a poem in your mouth.
i can’t ever be good because i’m always tryin’ to be perfect and my brother’s little head that reached my knee, hugging my leg so close, i have to look up to see his eyes now. little-brother, not so little. if this hand had a weapon—no, this hand is the weapon and that means a weapon raised him and yet, his voice has a softer edge to it and i can’t ever fathom that. i’m always looking down, at the ground, at the barrel of a gun, at the bottom of a drink. searching for things that even a halo can’t illuminate and yet, i have to look up to talk to him. to know his goodness means to believe in my own, to see your holiness is to grasp your hands in mine. i will let myself be good, try to be good because i can’t ever be perfect. knowing that your heavenstring-cut hands will cradle this imperfect hands in your own.
let me be good for you. stay.