body work

xxxi: the pilgrim's prayer

**tw's: religion, sh implied, abuse implied, blood**

(i). on your knees

it has been happening again—for sure,
there is something wrong with me, how
i see the sea as a sky in its own right—
the blue of both really drowns it all out—& still
i have done nothing but let it happen, oh god—
the ground grazes my skin—it's pain like that that
makes the worship work, & that's how a
mother is born—tending to her own blisters—whilst everybody just watches

the weathered walk the land, & call that an apology —see, it's easier to act a god than you think. i do it all
the time & laugh—all the more reason my
knees are calloused.

i spend more of my time
as the pilgrim—running from something &
to nothing at all.

(ii). palms upwards

they give me nothing but i have nothing else,
& so i think of the knife a little too much,
lovingly. wiling life away in a pocket watch, & love,
do you see how

yonas creates his own pilgrimage? yearly
making his way to where he last felt
happy to have a heart—i want to gift him the knife
so he can cut it out, leave a sacrifice at the place
he met god. but

i live in a pocket watch, the body
inscribed with the words of a forgotten prayer. oh god,
you never had soft memories to give me, now
there go my crawling hands, itching all over
like fire ants, as i

stare at the knife a little too long & a little too hard—
for the moment, there is nothing wrong with me
or the glint in my eye.
after all, i need something to pry myself open wifh, even if it is to see you
carve yourself into the crucifix, a new
etch each morn,
dare i go to all that trouble—all that travel—just to know what i already do? that i love(ed)
you better in my head? i do, oh how i do—see,

what is a pilgrimage but calling the place
you feel lonely holy instead?
a chance to call your pain glory?
& to blame something else than your mother
for all of it?

see, i remember my mother teaching us to pray
& how she swore. all the memories of her
taste like sand—still i only ever saw her kneeling
& so i forgive her, as does the meat
for blessing it before she wields the knife. i look
& look. too late, she told us about other ways to
pray—& this was one of them, on

the afternoon she spent folding clothes whilst
i folded hands & she told me to set fire to my youth, like she herself wasn't the flame & oh god, the shame was holy & i knew then that the body is not
the temple, but the sacrifice & that's why, so often one blesses the knife—with the mouth a tulip, all puckered up—ready to meet skin—

—ning the flesh in one go, again & again until the ground is all you know. i knew it once & should really find my way back there, to when

you had me picking up the eggshells we
were walking on. & you called it love. i broke them up
to have more to pick up, but then it was too much.

(iii). head downwards

you can only talk if you have the knife & my mother spoke for so long—see how now my mouth remains a tulip, blood-red—i
remember her hands in my hair,
the only likeness to her own mother & it was nice,
but then she cut it off & didn't like it. called me from the house of god just to be disappointed in what
she had done, but it was my fault—for sure,
this is what's wrong with me.

this year yonas invites me to join him in his misery. or i invite myself—but i don't believe in what he does,
i believe that everywhere can be a holy land, if you hurt (it) enough.

just follow the blood trail & you'll find your god—i
happen to know women who find a new one each month & drink to it. what with

going to places just to find different people with your face–but not me, i meet
strangers & carve them into you, yet no matter how much i try, the eyes aren't the right blue—
if someone had to break my heart,
i'm glad it was you. i'm glad it was my mother

i prayed with. i should have stayed there—but a sacrifice is given up—& when we're done, we walk away from god to a place we call home—i remember falling asleep on the prayer mat.
silly me, i should have stayed there.