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I Don't want the Spiritual Life


I don’t want the ‘spiritual life’

I want to feel the ripped apart heart

to know I am the fire

and the water

boiling and frothing with

love that soothes as it scorches


tattooing onto the heart

the constancy of creation’s

greatest gift

My piety doesn’t want to be quiet

it wants to holler

stop fucking children

you’re killing them

us, me


Repeating between the thighs

and within the heart

like the same gotdamn

gatling gun used in their

classrooms

We mourn the latter, moaning collectively

but hold the repeated rape

in silence, secret

it’s always been this way

we say


I want to hail the Black Mary

Kiss the brown Jesus’ feet

Sing a hymn off-key

off-kilter, it’s own drum

reaching hearts

of others

afraid to touch

the fire


I want my stillness to percolate

My silence to sing

in god’s grace

and worn out jeans

without the uniform of

performance, whiteness

witnessing birth from death

breath of life

word of love


Don’t tell me about the tithing

or the way so-and-so

isn’t invited to the table

of communion or your openness

to closed doors

bordered hearts

bound love in exchange

for appearing as you want me or them to be


Love doesn’t exclude

measure the bounty

define the beauty

and bends only toward one arc

unto and into itself, it's creation


Divest that love from the white uniform

of someone else's idea of purity

giving it the passion and purpose

it's boundlessness is made of

made for


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