THEY CRYO'D YU TOO
a boy i might love sent me a photo
said it looked like you
had come to life
i wanted to say
i don't want this kind of immortality
slow cold deathlessness snowsmith's cold
blasphemous hands
dared gut & carve
beloved tragic heroine
from a block of frigid bitch, cold
clever handsur clever
pupils peeled & pinned
so round so benevolent so perfect a perfect
wife is a dead oneshh, self-sacrifice
is for mortals
like & unlike me – i am
like you, me & the hordes of not-boys, all of us
SO
4 limbs 4 rest 4 sheafs of edible Kevlar 4
he doesn't know
the axe
he doesn't know
ur inkstone eyes, perfectly
smooth perfect!ly triumphant! !! O, how they leak
delight
like vinegarlike basaltic lavalike butolinum toxinlike
ON GROUNDS OF SAFETY CONCERNS
this is
a festival after all, beloved, they need their girls
frozen pretty, beloved, breakable wr
ists
&
wills.
WITH LOVE
cross-stitched prayers
& a statue of a flat-headed man holding a fish
or two, i forget
here, a light
so
patiently cruel
casts shadows of God
& girls
we grew in the gaps
my dearest friends & i
between pews
soft
& memoried
for fingernails & compasses & 'FuCK U's
tiny boredoms
tiny rebellions
Oh Lord Jesus Christ
who didst give such grace
to all the good girls
mid-sermon i fantasize about spewing my stomach out like a dirty blouse
guts scrunched into celtic crosses
with hunger, like a sword-turned-snake
with hunger & so many unnamed shames. On Sunday evenings they are drilled deeper the droning
enters thru ears & bellows thru bellies holy sick swelling recurring adult nightmares
awarded to
the smartest, most excellent
the best
bad kids
go to a special hell, says The Rev (more politely but we Know
because we are the only ones still awake). These days we laugh
at his grating Kiwi accent & fatherly homophobia
& leave out how
we picked at ourselves after every dinner
tiny Rev(olts)
tiny Rev(enge)
sinning between blinks
like this, my unholiest friend & i
crawl beyond girlhood
& womanhood
& manhood
but – and this part is the secret – there are no holy girls
& that is fine. like this, decay
into adulthood
with fractured fingers & genders
with love.
