Devoted, Holy / Religion of Humanity

Devoted, Holy

Somewhere in a story I read,

the loving hero gets out of bed 2 hours early,

so he has time to waste cuddling his partner.

It is hard to untrain myself from shame. I am always expecting you to call me stupid or dramatic

but, gaze soft, heart gentle,

"You're okay baby. It’s okay, I’m here."

When I lost feeling in my hand, things would just fall out of my grip. I couldn’t keep track of it.

After the first broken plaster, I cried. After the second broken vase, I was grounded. At some

point, people started saying I was doing it on purpose. Too angry.

The hatred I let fester for myself bubbles up out of snot-coated sobs,

No amount of healing makes it easier to be gentle with myself over this.

Tantrums are for children. Meltdowns are for children. Screaming, crying, clawing at my skin

until it breaks– this is kid shit. Maybe I am four-years-old and moving across the country. Maybe

I am eleven and losing my hand. Maybe I just turned nineteen and my grandma is dead. Maybe

I’m a kid, useless and too

loud.

"Hey, be gentle with that. That’s my partner you’re hitting. Give me your hands, baby."

You can have them. I try hard not to worship you the way I’ve devoted myself to

previous alters, putting partners in the holy place Fall Out Boy talks about. But I’d give you my

hands if you wanted them, no matter what you asked of them. Maybe it’s not dignified, but even

if you asked these hands to tear into myself; I'd do it.

But you never do. you take my hands gently, and hold them even though they shake. even though

they cannot hold you back.

I am not so naive as to think the way I grew up is normal. But I’ve loved before, knelt and gave

and prayed to a person, just as human as anyone. And humans are not immune to this sort of

power. Always, they bend me into place. Always they break me. Always they find something to

pin me down with, a cross they want me to bear.

But even though I give you the power, even though I’d let you hurt me, you never do.

You never call me annoying or seem burdened

by the unending amount of pain I am able to deal myself.

I am tense awaiting a blow that never comes. Awaiting a guilt you never deal. Awaiting a fate

worse than death, and you never take advantage of this opportunity. You never ever pour salt in

my wounds, not even for a second, not even just to see if I’ll flinch.

This kindness. This light,

I don’t think I’ve ever been permitted to breathe.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen light this beautiful.

You work at ten and set alarms for 7, because you want to have time to spend with me before

you have to go. I cannot even explain the way I love you, but even worse; all the poet in me can’t

write out the way you love me. Thank you. Thank you, I love you, and I will not let that slip

away.

The Religion of Humanity

I am standing in a church. I’m standing behind the podium in this church, and looking out over a

room. A room full of me, and god.

Not capital G god who I do not call out for anymore, but god. A crowd of 30 people, mostly

poets. I see my mother, my two best friends, and the girl I used to write poems about.

It’s a Unitarian church. It smells just like every other church I’ve been to, but there is a rainbow

flag on the wall next to the cross. It means everything to me.

The paper poems I printed crinkle in my hand. I stand at the front of this church, behind a pulpit,

and I preach. I preform or I preach; maybe for a poet it is one and the same.

I stand at the front of this room, looking out at middle-aged pews of middle-aged people and I

speak.

It’s the first time I ever call myself a poet.

The poems I pick were my best. I speak about a girl, sitting in the audience, with artillery shell

eyes and gunpowder lipstick. I speak about how she hurt me. How her voice leaves my ears

ringing and my scars are shaped like her words. I warned her before we sat down, and still when

we left there were tears in her crystal eyes

‘It hurts to hear me like that. Like how you said.’

Over burnt coffee and the cold scent of church, I tell her the wounds are still fresh. They will

heal. The scars will fade, but my ink will always remain. My ink on this page, on this pen, in this

room, spilling out over pews this— stain. This... will remain.

That’s the first time I realize what poetry means to me. A way to make it real. Fragmented

sentences and half deranged wails of a tired mind, spiraling together into concrete. Solid

memories, pouring into the foundation of my healing like cement. This... is permanent.

This... is forever.

These words, my tongue, the spiral of my language and the labyrinth of my memories, this is

forever.

This is god.

Not me, but my work. It is blessed. It is immortal, it holds influence. Immeasurable influence,

over the crystal blue tears and the flash of my mother’s camera, the flag on the wall will

remember my words. Thirty people in a crowd— they will remember my words.

They are god to me, too. They change my poetry. They make me brave. I hold them in my heart.

They are god.

Just like the barista in target who drew a heart on my cup is god. Just like my mother is god. Just

like my best friend, sitting in the crowd smiling at me, is god. Just like my baby sister is god.

Just like you are god.

There is holiness in humanity. It walks among us, and seeps inside our cells. It waits for us to

call on it in times of need. It learns and perseveres, it is human. It is us.

It feels deep sorrow, and it laughs with beautiful joy. This deity inside of us doesn’t slumber. It

makes its way into every sentence. Every breath is full of stardust.

God is the way my friend smiles at lunch. God is the way my sibling stands on a stage and acts.

God is kindness, and joy, and sorrow.

We all hold her, this great god called existence. We have her power in our blood. We don’t

notice her, our influence. But every word I say changes the world a little. Every stranger I smile

at will meet me in my dreams, every compliment I give will rest in the hearts of someone who

has forgotten their holy. Who cannot feel the great spirit within themselves.

I am standing at the front of a classroom. I look out at desks full of other students, just like me,

competing. I say “this is a piece of what made me a poet” and they say “Wonderful. Tell me

more.”

I take each of their poems with me in my heart, folded away for my next performance. I accept

awards of whatever place, and kiss the cold metal, trying to infuse it with the power of every

poet I’ve ever seen.

They fill up space in my heart. On bad days, I think about a girl who spoke about loving

Lebanon. On lonely days, I treasure a poem my friend read me, about birds and the magic within

us. They fill my lungs with their words and they shape my outlook on life. They are god.

This is my religion. Art and poetry and performance and emotion. This is my religion: people,

and everything that makes them.