getting right

I was fifteen and I lived in a house of sticks for a week.  Danced around a fire most evenings.

Fell in love with a girl of immeasurable beauty, she came from a different continent, smelled strong of cinnamon.  We made filthy love on the dirt, churning the floor to clay in our passion.  Each day we made the burnt offering to buy continued redemption for our open sin, but the weight of it still weighed heavy.  Eventually it became too much for her fragile constitution, the sin-infused clay clogging her pores and starving her of oxygen.  In her weakest state I bargained with the devil for her corporal form, canted spells over her sagging skin.  To no avail.  On the sixth day God took her from me and I cursed Him for the agony of it.

In my grief I wandered.  I chased cars and spat at sunsets and tore down mountains in my madness.  I kept some of her bones; ate a broth of tears flavored with their long-dry marrow.  My legs stretched with longing, as tall as redwoods, and I stepped across oceans and seas and traversed the globe high above those toiling below me.  Head amongst stars, breathing the metallic air of outer space as I peered down to the world below.  Transformed as I was the people feared me.  Bravado swelled in my breast and my ribs ached to keep back the pride.  On the twelfth day God pierced me like a balloon.  Water and blood mingled flowed.

The Godless found me, drove me back to the sticks in a wagon, their women nursed me to health.  In their kindness I saw my folly laid bare and repented.  I took my leave of them, thanking them for my very breath.

I tore down the house of sticks; scattered the ashes of our fire to the four corners; rid myself of the bones of ghosts.  I regained my senses.

It was the fifteenth day.

Also written on this day...

• to work then - 2023
• going up the country - 2009
• conflicting interests - 2006
• my lungs hurt - 2005
• - 2004
• on the boardwalk - 2003