take me to church
“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned” you whisper onto the press of our lips,
the dip of our kiss
It’s a joke
—except it’s not. It’s really, really not.
You carry a silver cross chained around your throat
and when it falls between us it burns me too,
us two heretics, devil witches.
It’s sin, you’re thinking.
It rolls over and over in your mouth until it comes out
“It’s wrong.”
It’s sin, I was thinking. How inevitable.
How alive.
Our sin that has grown with us,
since our sophomore summer when I first met the pastor’s daughter with her pleated skirt
and you saw the harvest we would reap, if we planted these sinful seeds.
I watch you when you walk up.
“The world taught me guilt,” you confess at the stand,
perfect prayer girl,
but guilty, guilty, guilty...
We fooled them all, hadn’t we:
your American blond hair and my pretty chemical lips, your perfect piety, my vapidity
and in the end—you fooled even me,
too.
I tell you that you’re my whole world;
you murmur against me
“and you’re mine, darling.”
I push you out of the closet we’ve hidden in this time
and we blaspheme until we’re worn out, unfurled.
“The world taught me shame,” you cry.
I’m crying too, because I know
This isn’t the lie.
I hope I brand shame on you every time we collide--
my fingers, your wrist;
my hands, your throat;
my touch, your hips.
Because you make me jealous
and desperate
and a carnal monster under my skin,
But you are the best thing I’ve ever wished for on winter winds,
and you're the only real decision I’ve ever made—the cost has only ever been how heavy our souls would
weigh.
This is you: singing Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
This is me: seething with the jut of my hip, bitter with the curl of my lip, condemned by the weight in my
chest
This is us: Trapped. Terrified. They know.
We’re spending too much time together; we’re running out of time.
You have to stay; I need to go.
The only words you say to me these days are I can’t, I can’t, I can’t; I am crying and ugly because of us.
It’s been a beautiful fight.
But the cruelest thing you continue to do is ask me to choose and
I choose and choose and I never get to choose you.
I'm too tired of never getting to choose you.
the dip of our kiss
It’s a joke
—except it’s not. It’s really, really not.
You carry a silver cross chained around your throat
and when it falls between us it burns me too,
us two heretics, devil witches.
It’s sin, you’re thinking.
It rolls over and over in your mouth until it comes out
“It’s wrong.”
It’s sin, I was thinking. How inevitable.
How alive.
Our sin that has grown with us,
since our sophomore summer when I first met the pastor’s daughter with her pleated skirt
and you saw the harvest we would reap, if we planted these sinful seeds.
I watch you when you walk up.
“The world taught me guilt,” you confess at the stand,
perfect prayer girl,
but guilty, guilty, guilty...
We fooled them all, hadn’t we:
your American blond hair and my pretty chemical lips, your perfect piety, my vapidity
and in the end—you fooled even me,
too.
I tell you that you’re my whole world;
you murmur against me
“and you’re mine, darling.”
I push you out of the closet we’ve hidden in this time
and we blaspheme until we’re worn out, unfurled.
“The world taught me shame,” you cry.
I’m crying too, because I know
This isn’t the lie.
I hope I brand shame on you every time we collide--
my fingers, your wrist;
my hands, your throat;
my touch, your hips.
Because you make me jealous
and desperate
and a carnal monster under my skin,
But you are the best thing I’ve ever wished for on winter winds,
and you're the only real decision I’ve ever made—the cost has only ever been how heavy our souls would
weigh.
This is you: singing Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
This is me: seething with the jut of my hip, bitter with the curl of my lip, condemned by the weight in my
chest
This is us: Trapped. Terrified. They know.
We’re spending too much time together; we’re running out of time.
You have to stay; I need to go.
The only words you say to me these days are I can’t, I can’t, I can’t; I am crying and ugly because of us.
It’s been a beautiful fight.
But the cruelest thing you continue to do is ask me to choose and
I choose and choose and I never get to choose you.
I'm too tired of never getting to choose you.