Mercy Not Sacrifice
You have been tuning me into your song,
For every time my signal fails to transmit
And I feel like the man in the silent movie
Who has to pantomine but he’s being shown
In a world where screaming pantomine just
Bores people into looking back at their phones,
You use that experience to help me see
How utterly wrathful your love is.
Your wrath is so precious and powerful;
You will use it to shoot the perfect arrow
That carries a secret torpedo which upon
Making contact with a small thermal exhaust port
Can bring the Death Star down;
And that moment when the fascist governor
Basks in the rebels’ impending liquidation,
He puffs like a dandelion in the wind;
It will be as soft as a flower how you
Deliver the blow that utterly devastates
Everyone who has utterly ignored you,
Everyone who flirts with you and then
Makes out with another guy four feet away
And you made it clear when I wrote that
Song in college, that the words to the song
Were you longing for me to let you in.
You want to cut our hearts perfectly
Not so that we bleed out and die,
But so that our hearts gush and we
Are more tickled by your love
Than we ever thought possible when
We were masturbating to water that will
Never be anything like your wine;
Your wine has been aging so long
And every century you learn that your
People really haven’t changed at all
Because the people who crucified you
Since they wanted to honor you
Still think that you’re the heretic
In the equation even though you’re
Fucking God for Christ’s sake,
And you keep on trying to give them
Freudian slips that will call them out
When they write their exhaustive
Two-thousand page summaries
Of everything God is ever allowed to think.
I don’t think you’ll let me shoot your arrows
At all the people who ever made me feel dumb
Because then I would turn back into Lucifer
And you would have to save me all over again.
But I do want the pleasure of getting to watch
The conversation you have with the influencers,
Especially the really really influential ones,
And you’re going to say things that will surprise me
And convict me of all the judgments I
Have made about the people who ghosted
Me while at the same time making it so that
Everyone sees everyone completely for the first time.
You are the God who sees and you see me;
I’m glad that you’re angry about the ways
That people have treated me like shit
And made me feel like an alien
After that stupid nurse asked me if
I wanted to be a TV star when she
Had me naked with a catheter in my penis
On her table and forced me to pee
All over it; and five minutes of my life
Became the reason that I could never find
A girlfriend until several months before
It was time to leave for the next place.
And that nurse was just feeling awkward
And didn’t mean to hurt me and I can’t
Necessarily say the same thing about the
Basketball coach and his crime but
Your Pachamama shamans helped me
Forgive him finally when prayers in your
Empty cross chambers had not
Ever moved the needle in that direction.
You rage fiercer than Kali every time you
See any of your babies get hurt and
Especially when people shame them for
Expressing their hurt and tell them
There are people with much harder lives
Than yours; get over yourself; and they
Actually think that’s what you would tell
One of your little ones to do;
They think they speak for you;
How absolutely astounding when they stand
Before you and you give them the face that
Lebron made after J.R.’s timeout and they’re
Like oh shit, we really didn’t know what
We were doing even though we prayed
Multiple times a day; wow, we don’t even
Know you at all and you still love us!
I know because you’ve broken my ground
So richly what it means to be so acutely
Aware of my unclean lips that I have no
Comprehension of how unworthy I am to be
Given these visions that will probably
Never be seen by more than 10 people
Yet are the full weight of your glory
In my life and when I’m feeling muscle aches
And thinking that virus has finally got me;
You lay hands on me and speak in what
Are increasingly sounding like actual
Different languages and fill my veins
With strange electricity that seems to heal
The muscle aches unless it was just
The Tylenol finally kicking in;
But something makes this feel like
It’s the Super Bowl and we’re winning;
You said your word will not come back
To you without completing what it
Has set forth to do; so is this one of
Those words or is this something different?
I really believe it might be one of those
Words that you said you would use
And I’m getting goose bumps just
Saying that because we’re talking back
And forth in my mind like you’re the
Middle school girlfriend I never
Had just like you showed me oozing,
Smothering warmth in the mother I did have;
I can picture you climbing up the water
Tower with me like that Jewish girl
In college and when I said let’s pray,
You would say I want to make out;
I wish I had made out with you more
In college instead of thinking I had
To date girls to be taken seriously.
I wonder if you would have come into
My life more exquisitely if I had actually
Had time to explore the other side of me
That made me put a black topless Jesus in
The mosaic of icons on my wall in front of me;
St. John of the Cross, St. Francis, all the Cappadocians
Were entirely erotically in love with you
So surely they had some imagination of
The rapture we’ll receive when we understand
That we are your orgasm, and so many
Will view this stanza as the reason why
I should lose my clergy credentials,
But the reason cheap sex is sinful
Is because divine sex is the $3 million
Chateau exclusive bottle and firing off dopamine
To prove that you’re a man is Mad Dog 20/20.
You just want us to come to your fricking
Wedding banquet and you’ve sent
Multiple messengers and we’re so busy
Looking at our own stats that we can’t
Even engage another person’s work
Without transaction and actually read
Each word cautiously as though
It’s a treasure hunt for your wisdom.
But one day you’re going to lay a trap for us;
You’re going to give us something so sweet
To eat that after that nobody will ever
Want to resist your will; then we’ll understand
That you are the lover who was always
Chasing us, not wanting us to leave for UCLA
In two weeks; the girlfriend we came home to
Who said I am not a slut when we tried to
Bust moves on you in the movie theater;
Because you don’t want us just using your
Body to feed ourselves dopamine,
You want us to have the full banquet of every
Bounty you have ever made us;
You want us to go and pick flowers
And maybe pray less if it gives us
More time to delight in you.
And now I don’t feel like I’m even
Part of this equation anymore because
I’ve just been a scribe this whole time
Watching the light shoot into my fingers
And onto the screen; and maybe I’m
A little too enamored with this right now
But honestly I feel so close to you
That I know you are the one who always snuggled
Me even in the years when I was too
Autistic to have a warm, sweet girl
Wrapping her arms around me,
But when she was there, she was you
In that moment, just as I can be you
In other moments insofar as I
Transmit the signal that I receive
From whatever other series of
Signal towers you first sent out
Your love to such that they
Gasped and let the universe know;
And love has been more contagious
Than any virus the world has ever
Known before and even so
At least 80% of the world seems
Immune to the virus divine love inflicts.
It’s something that happens when
Loser kids find each other
In the shadows chain-smoking
And somehow have enough of you
In them that they pick each other up
And they become strong and determined
And they start to clean their houses
And dream dreams because everything
They had expected to face next is
Permanently in a state of suspense
And it seems some days like dying
Of the damn virus would just be easier
Than continuing to wait for everything
To go to hell; but in the midst of hell,
They find heaven; they build gardens;
They share vegetables with neighbors.
And something shifts when the virus dies down;
People don’t kiss the asses of those who were
Above them or show contempt to those below them
Because all the numbers that determine whether
One person is worth a hundred million times as much
As the next person prove to be utterly irrelevant
To living rich lives and amazingly everyone
Just says yes! at the same time and it’s like
On American Idol, when Simon Cowell actually praised
Someone and you felt the hallelujah soaring
In your heart because you knew that you had
Just heard an angel and it was reaffirmed by God.
Angels, gods, we are all part of the campfire
That has always been, is always now, will always be;
That campfire is the divine light that contains
All of us; we sometimes glow like embers
And sometimes dampen the fire like ash;
But we’re all part of your crown of thorns
And though we’re hurting your head right
Now with the way that we’re acting,
You would never want to wear another
Crown to your coronation because we
Are your jewels, more precious to you
Than gold or any of the other minerals
That are actually named in the Hebrew
Version of the Bible; you picked us
Out from all the stones of the cosmos
To be your people and it doesn’t matter
`
Who hears that call and accepts that
Acceptance because it’s true of everyone;
You love us and there’s not a damn
Thing we can do about it; you will
Scold us like a mother when we’re
Making her late for work, and you
Will hold us tenderly like a father
In a hammock with his precocious daughter.
You love me; you actually love me;
Like enough to throw words at me
And make me blush each time the
Keystroke lands while I’m imagining
People actually smiling when they
Read what’s here because whatever
Gates you shut for so long on my
Poetry, I am lost in the thunder of your
Cataracts right now and it makes my
Eyes roll back in my head almost
Because I’m starting to feel the
Beat that you would bring into the song
Now but I can’t work on that now because I
Promised myself I would go to bed early
Since I have symptoms of the coronavirus
But apparently you somehow took them
Away and all I feel now is a tingling
I trust isn’t death approaching because
The sunset I’m witnessing is unlike
Any beauty I’ve ever seen and I trust
That if I write the next words
And even finish the poem,
There’s not a bomb that will go off
And silence a heart that is filled with your love.
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