I cried in an empty church today & it reminded me of when
I
took a train to Jerusalem & found that it was a city of shattered tea
lights
spilt from last summer/ the world was rotating the wrong way/
shard-sliced,
bare-boned & throbbing/ we keep
walking anyway
we’re
travelling so quickly; I thought I saw myself melt in the windows,
into
the blue that laps
upon blue/
who
knew how hungry time becomes, i never realised the clocks
were
craving for something, too/ gravity
does not promise graceful falls
6pm:
get off the train, into a station i’ve
only witnessed
in
the rain that permeates my body during dreary days &
fear
holds a dagger against my clavicle, thumb
against
my
cupids bow and oh how
the
skeletons beneath the dirt rattle in response
how
my ancestors are tucked in the folds of night/
how
God
does not forsake us/ how fate
found
us/ three things stand out in my
stupor/
i.
there’s a seraph sleeping in
ninefold winds. she sighs out a dream:
keep walking, sweetheart. we’re
starving dogs searching for salvation.
ii.
there are no stars tonight,
& i realise it’s because we swallowed all of them
iii.
the moon is leaking/ oh no—it’s
dribbling down my shirt/
(will you clean it up for me?)
i
met an angel & before i approached
him, i slipped
anxiety
like a belt, then asked with my hands
heart
and heavy: hey, do you know how to
get to the other side?
or
because i’m sick with sensitivity or because honesty bruises
my
knees: i got on the wrong train, i think i’m going to cry
i
met an angel today & they left me in
tears—not because they left
but
because they left & my heart swelled into an amorphous animal
which
slipped out of my tear glands in the form of my mother’s weeping
&
the blades of my shoulder shudder like the earth beneath/
litter
lilies across the concrete & crack a good laugh
it’s
terribly june & we’re nearly back
to where we began
i
could have captured a photo, but there’s bliss-
fullness
in forgetting, in letting go of the world
how
to let go of the grass you’ve been clinging on for
four
summers/ how to let go of—
