Apotheosis

We, a heap
Of moving mortal flesh
In this most spiritual of moments
Eyes opened wider than ever
Enlightened by the clamor
Of our tangling limbs
And bashing bones
So painfully, joyfully
We are becoming
Gods

intentions

when you call me, i will show up at your door
with big blinky eyes and pink lips
and behind them a sweet smile of shiny white teeth
and behind them a mouthful of sweeter venom
so toxic that after you kiss me,
even if you bleed to death
you will never
get me out
of your system

calling "oh sinner, come home"

in an attempt to simultaneously avoid rush hour traffic and satisfy an intense fried mozzarella stick craving, i had dinner at the jack in the box across the street from school after class on wednesday night. i ordered two tacos for 99 cents and, against my better judgement, a 6 piece box of mozzarella sticks. i also got a small drink, which i filled with strawberry fanta, orange fanta and sprite. i don’t know, i guess i was feeling adventurous.

anyway, i waited for my order and then brought it to a table near the door of the restaurant. i ate one cheese stick and took a bite of my taco, and then i heard the door open behind me. these two people walked in, college aged kids, one guy and one girl. the guy looked at me like he knew me, so i looked back like i was trying to remember who he was. turns out i didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, but he asked me if it was okay if he talked to me for a minute about the word of God. i said “i’m already a christian, does that count for anything?” and he got all excited and asked if he and his friend could sit down. then he proceeded to tell me all about the gospel, ask about my church life, and ask me if i knew i’d go to heaven if i died that night. regular evangelical kind of stuff. nothing extraordinary, although the guy didknow his bible verses.

lately i’ve become disenchanted with religion. i think it comes with getting older. the world starts to make less sense the longer you live in it, and you come to realize that many of the things you once wholeheartedly believed in may not be as absolute as you might have thought. you learn, you go to college, people die and you question everything. such is life.

i watched this guy talk to me, this look of genuine love and concern on his face, and he seemed to me like a child. i imagined him for a moment as a kid walking away from a magic show and telling his friends at school about all the amazing magic he saw, never with any idea that none of it was real.

“and then the magician sawed the box that the man was in in half and i saw his guts and everything, and then he put him back together and the man came back to life!”

he said God gave his son so that we might be saved, and that our sin became his, and that through him we will have eternal life.

“and then the soldiers nailed him to a cross and there was blood and his legs were broken and everything, and then they buried him and God brought him back to life!”

i began to feel sad, i was touched by how earnestly he shared his beliefs with me, and i was saddened by how deeply he believed in them. how is it possible for anyone to believe like that when the world is such an awful place? how can anyone who watches the 11 o’clock news still believe in God? only children can believe like that. it’s like believing in Santa, in super heroes, in magic. once you begin to learn things about life, it becomes impossible for you to believe that these things are real.

i began to cry. i didn’t want to tell him that i was crying because i pitied him and his unquestioning faith. i didn’t tell him i was crying because i knew one day something would happen to him that would shake his faith to the core, and possible shatter it. i didn’t say why i was crying. i just said that i really respected him and his friend for going out and sharing their faith with others, and that i was really glad they came to talk to me. “i respect you, i respect you” was all i kept saying. what i meant was “i envy your naiveté, i respect you for having the courage it takes to blindly follow something.”

they prayed for me. i looked at them while my eyes were supposed to be closed, both of them with hands folded and eyes squeezed shut, and i wondered if they thought they had reached me. i wondered how they read my tears. we said amen together and i thanked them again. they gave me a flier for some church thing and then they left.

the remaining five mozzarella sticks had gotten cold. the cheese was no longer melty.

anatomy

i like your bones
and the way they move
under your flesh and skin and muscles
when we're moving
together

and i like your hands
and the marks they leave
on unseen parts of me
like modern art
or rorschach tests

and i like your knees caps
and hip bones
and collar bones
and spine
and teeth
and lips
on mine

my father's father

I never knew my father's father. He died before I was born.

As a child I never really thought anything much of the fact that he wasn't there. I just knew he was in heaven. I knew someday I'd meet him.

All I ever heard about my grandfather, until very recently, was that he didn't talk much, that he was a helicopter mechanic, that he made a pineapple upside-down cake so sweet it made you dizzy. I have a jar full of rocks that he collected and tumbled. In younger years, I sat for many hours examining each rock, rubbing my thumbs over their smooth, glossy surfaces, thinking about my grandfather doing the same.

I never heard my dad talk about his father. Typically, when he'd come up in conversation it was because my mom would remember how he was shocked when she tried to hug him after she married my dad, or how he would say "mhmm, mhmm, mhmm." quietly as you spoke to him.

"Remember, Philip?" she always says to my dad when she brings up my grandpa George.

"Mhmm." my dad always says.

I always wanted to ask my dad to tell me about his dad, but I never wanted to make him sad, so I never did.

All Saints Sunday is the day where you remember people who have passed away. In church on All Saints Sunday, I sat with my family in our regular pew. I listened to the pastor ring a bell once for every person who passed away that year. Ting, ting, ting. We got up and took rocks for all the saints we wanted to honor and left them at the altar. I took one for my Papa, my, grandpa George, and my friend Jason. I left the three little grey stones at the altar, looking at the flame of the little candle through tear-blurred eyes. When everyone had placed their stones, the pastor told us to share memories about our lost loved ones with the people in out pew. My dad began to speak, quietly.

"The last time I saw my dad alive, he was in bed, at home. I remember I went to go visit him, to make sure he was okay before I went to play softball with the guys from work. I was in my softball uniform, I was just stopping by to check on him. I spent a couple minutes with him, but then I had to go. As I was leaving, he asked me not to go, he asked me to stay and I said I couldn't because I was going to be late for the softball game. That was the last time I saw my dad alive."

My dad had his arm around my shoulder, his head was hanging and his eyes were pointed down toward his lap. I was crying. I was imagining my father in his softball uniform, in the excellent shape he was in the 80's; tall, handsome and young, rushing away from his dying father, my grandpa, who was begging him not to go. I was so sad for my dad, so sad that he didn't know it was the last time he'd ever speak to his father. The lint from the kleenex I was using was making me sneeze. My makeup was running.

Every time I leave to go anywhere, every time I leave my family, I tell them I love them. You just never know when it will be the last time you get the chance.

reoccurring dreams

this is how the dream goes.

i see you somewhere. a restaurant, a classroom, a friend's house. i approach you with the naive confidence i had in my early teenaged years. i'm about to tell you that i like you, but you beat me to it. then you smile. it's always the same smile. and then we kiss. it's always the same kiss. and somehow in my dream it feels so real, and somehow it still feels too good to be true, and in my dream your lips feel exactly the way i remember them.

when i wake i feel certain that your hand is in mine, that your body is curled around my body.

but when i snap out of my morning fog, i always find that i am alone.

Medusa's Rape

Medusa was beautiful, once.

Before she was cursed she was a virgin priestess in the temple of Athena, young and sweet with lips like cherry blossoms. Her hair was long and lustrous, catching light from everything that shone, flowing like a waterfall of black silk. Her eyes, cool and deep,were the color of pebbles tumbled and smoothed by a river.

Medusa was beautiful, once, and Poseidon took notice of her as she prayed alone one day in the temple. He came to her and pressed his cool, moist hands against her shoulders. Startled, Medusa cried out, but Poseidon silenced her lips with a violent kiss from his own.

In the dark of the temple Poseidon and Medusa moved. Her alabaster skin against the stone floor bled as she struggled. His arms wrapped tight around her fragile body glistened with sweat and salt and sea. In the emptiness of the temple, Medusa's muffled sobs echoed like the hissing of wild animals. She twisted and writhed on the cold temple floor, silken hair tangled into strange ropes mingled with blood and sweat.

Poseidon left her motionless before the altar. In the grey half-light of the temple Medusa's torn skin and flesh looked like raw, beautiful marble. Her hair caught the light from the altar flame in a mysterious way and gave one the impression that her twisted locks had come to life, slithering almost imperceptibly around her head.