Dear God
I allowed them to leave their misery between my vertebrates, attach their lust on the wailing wall of my body
Hide their redemption between my hips
So I bent my words over their compliments and created question marks in my movements
I asked them to pray for me, God laced between my fingers like sticky prayers to get me out of dark rooms where nobody’s had no faces
No names
no one needed to play the name game because we weren’t taking the same route home
Father come get me, lay me at your feet, my soles are burning from standing too long waiting to be called upon
The palms of my hands smashed together like mercy on my lips stained, tinted red like the pumping in my veins left traces of guilt like stains in the lines on my fingertips.
Sin riddled under my skin like an early morning service
With the stench of low lit bodies crammed into sweet lyrics of late night kisses and hickies that no amount of cold spoons can hide
I am broken
A womyn lost between bible pages and parables
Prodigal daughter left trampled in men’s nightmares
left my bones at the bottom of liquor bottles, long island ice tea’s and photo booths
I can’t pray for a body that sways me, betrays me always looking for a way out
Move me
I am not asking to be saved
Been too intimate in private
Can’t bow my head for fear of seeing my nightmares like movies on my eye lids
So pray with the lights on
Never earned death before finding life in grinding, reminding my skin to live again
My religion is on the other side of this poem
On the backs of proverbs rolled into psalms
crying out for a savior who doesn’t pay any mind to the addictions tugging on my heels, didn’t come to perfect
I asked to be born again
Stripped raw and bled
Wood splintered in my eyes
I can’t seem to find a good place to hide
He told me he’d never stop looking in all the obvious places
I told Him:
“There is no sense in playing this type of game with a perfect parent”