Sometimes, the old Catholic in me
rears its pious head, telling me
that prayer looks like aching knees
and the scrubbing of my shame,
until the grime of my very aliveness
soon after builds again—
but that gentler voice within
blows this smoke away
with but a whisper,
asking me how I want to pray today,
and what part of my body would like to do the praying?
is it my feet,
dancing in the grass,
is it my hands,
tracing an oak?
You may think, because I write poetry,
I must believe words are really, really important.
But sometimes, when I lay with my cats,
and I see how much a simple gaze
or nuzzling of the head
can say,
I think: that is the poem.
I think: maybe words aren’t very necessary at all.
There are some people who will make you feel like a fool
through moving lips, an upturned chin.
Like putting my spirit on its knees, commanding I listen
to all but my heart.
There are some people who, through their deafening, humble silence,
still make me feel like a fool, but only because
they make me hear the message I’ve been ignoring, that quiet but sure one,
a tea light in me, a brazier in them.
That silent teacher said not a thing, but only pointed to that voice
in my breast.
did you know that the original meaning of “planet”
is wanderer?
you, wild celestial horse,
your wanderlust greater
than love’s chains.
how glad am I for your transit
through this house—
though I soon bid thee goodbye,
I am at peace.
who has a grip stronger
than the pull of time?
not I— no, not I.
my revolutionary ideologies
are capable of utter destruction.
do you know how loud a hushed mouth is?
listen: there is no greater noise.
a hurricane of silence.
I made myself delicate,
public displays of my underbelly.
I dressed a fortress in a house of cards:
meanwhile,
I saw the straw that they called a castle.
silent observation: toppled.
at least to my eyes.
there is no gaze more piercing
than a gentle one.
how can a thought hold weight?
like a crown of thorns,
kettle bells dangling from each spike.
I can feel your head laying atop my chest,
the gentlest gravity, but there.
how can that make me feel weightless,
a temporary reprieve
from the heaviness of my thoughts?
there’s so many different parts of you capable of picking up a pen and writing.
don’t let the perfect hand
of aesthetic sense
pick up your pen.
she writes beautifully,
but her wrists are cuffed.
don’t let the hand of order,
of patterning,
take your pen:
he is exacting,
& will entrap you
in his cell bar grid lines.
but the base of your spine
is illiterate, and your gut
communicates in grunts:
still—
they’re better suited for the task.
the animal of your being
cannot weave falsehoods.
Dive, Persephone,
into your underworld—
for that is where you
and where the poem
hide.
Remember: your depths cannot lie.
to labor over a poem,
or to splatter it:
ink on a page.
to tell your reader of liberation,
to twirl freely
on life’s dance floor,
to open the cage
they’ve freely stepped into and locked—
while you labor
over such wishes of merriment,
while you struggle
to say what you plainly feel,
to tell yourself no, over and over—
this is encouraging medicine
using poison as its ingredients,
writing
like an expert on freedom
from the inside of a cell.
Yes, yes, yes, my heart? What is it now?
After so long silencing you, I will answer your call forevermore.
I had so much to account for:
voicemails my heart left me throughout my youth.
I played them back and wept
Before I go on, I need to make something very clear: I love her. Deeply. I could list infinitudes of clichés about the ways in which she makes me feel – that she’s the missing puzzle piece I’ve longed for all my life, she made my life go from black and white to technicolor, that I’d give up my soul just for a whiff of her scent – but I fear none of them can adequately explain the intensity of my passion. How can I explain an orchestral symphony to the deaf? How can I explain sunsets to the blind?
How can I explain the depth of my love to anyone?
Alas, I must try. When I tell you that I love her, I mean to tell you that it feels like my entire life was a long process of approaching the great singularity of our meeting, and that all things have been secondary to that one extraordinary moment. I mean to tell you that our hearts are plainly connected by a golden thread, the only source of direction to be found in the labyrinth of the universe. I mean to tell you that she is the end of the labyrinth. I mean to tell you that our spirits were cut from the very same cloth, that our love feels like deep kinship, like a grand homecoming. I mean to tell you that the glory of our union is like the feeling of graduating after many long, grueling years of study, like throwing your cap in the air in sweet triumph. I mean to tell you that it is like a physicist toiling at his desk for many years, his entire life’s work culminating in one grand moment of at last reconciling all variables into one Grand Unified Theory of Everything. I mean to tell you that she is my Grand Unified Theory of Everything, that she is my Everything, and my life had not started until our relationship began.
I didn’t know I was homesick until you held me. I didn’t know I was addicted to you until I had my very first fix. I didn’t know I was freezing until I knew your warmth.
What wasted years! My hands had never done anything worthwhile until they held yours. My eyes had never truly seen until they drank in your bare form. I didn’t know I had a voice until you heard me. I was virgin until you deflowered my heart.
Life before her was not life at all, but a prelude to it, an agonizingly long gestation period where miscarriage was threatened numerous times. The glory of our consummated union was like at last being born and taking my first breath.
…
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 