mother i was only a child
when you had ripped the stake in the shape of the
cross from the wilted weeping black
of the earth when first you had tried
to drown me in the holiness of your tears but
it had failed me and instead lit
a rage burning from within you that demanded
repentance of me and so you had
transfixed the cross through the center
of my chest stating how little i knew
of suffering mother i was only a child
coughing and spluttering viscous crimson
blood upon the cross made of the same
weak rotting wood as my own frame
mother i was only a child when your fingers
emaciated by the years had peeled
the bark strip by strip from my
form diminishing me down to distortion
of eidolon much like living epitaph
of love and light lining your home built
upon golgotha the epitaph which at
night stirs from slumber wailing
dissonant hymns of desire to be
bathed in the blood of the lamb mother i
was only a child when you had gouged
out with teaspoon the innocence of my
eyes and set yours of smog in their
place but mother they were too small
for my sockets and they fell
nightly as i bowed my head to beg
forgiveness of you for you with you
and mother here i stand now ten rings
older and you can see it bared upon what little
remains now in the absence of your smog and
haze long ago buried in a tattered shoebox
like that of which we buried small wounded
animals in welcoming the still bleak beauty
of blindness brilliant tiny stars stop by
from time to time and i am learning
to shroud myself in velvet black
and to greet specks of distant
light without shame as if
they were an age old friend
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