INWARDS / INNARDS

i keep a St. Dymphna pendant
& a St. Christopher coin
in my car because i need to feel protected
& so far no god has held my faith.
i wasn't raised catholic,
but there's something about the saints
that brings me comfort.

(i flay neuropathways
& transpose time.
this is ritual,
this is how to keep
the supposed demons away.)

to believe in something
so much as to die for it–
i'm looking within myself
for the spark
& coming up empty.
trying to light a smoke
& the wick won't catch.

i keep reminding myself that "shame is not a substitute for passion"
wear it on my chest & repeat it like a mantra
found in a google search
for "how to convince yourself to move on"
which turned into a suggested search
of "the art of letting go"
which inevitably ended
on the wikipedia article for snowflakes
& suddenly i'm reading about light reflections
& there are a lot of words i don't know.

what i'm saying is
i've been entering the onramp
from the right side only
& repeating things 3 times
& checking & rechecking & checking again
i've been obsessing over thought spirals
& if something doesn't feel right,
i'll do it until it does.

my intrusive thoughts
are leading me through crisis of character.
they don't take me by the hand–
they place metaphorical fingers in my hair
& drag me through whatever hell they created,
my knees scored with the blood of Christ–
if i am made in your image—
Father tell me, do you weep?

i'm not religious.
i have a hard time with belief,
decided at 4 or 5
that God wasn't real
while sitting in the pew
trying to piece together
devotion,
it's a vase not fallen
but pulverized,
there's nothing to
glue back together.

i'm not religious,
|i was just raised
in a steeple of hypocrisy
that's left me wanting–
left me– open wound–
raw nerve–

left me to sift
through the dirt & the grit
to find Him
in a place with no windows–
i'm claustrophobic.

i'm not religious,
the zealot energy around me drove grooves
through my neural pathways,
& my chemically imbalanced brain took it & ran.

my ocd & religious trauma
skip around me in circles
arm in arm–

shame me;
tell me i'm a burden
& maybe mine will lift.
condemn me;
i am sin–
i'm malignant;
i am eating away at myself.
autocannibalism:
as good a way to go
as any.

i'm not afraid of dying
i'm afraid of dying
& not staying dead.
i'm afraid of spontaneous human combustion
& i'm afraid of proving myself right.
i'm afraid of the mess that's been made of my thoughts.

wow, hope salamander doesn't burn himself today– iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou– WHAT IF I SKINNED MY CAT & MADE A CENTERPIECE OUT OF HER– pinch yourself 3 times– pick a song, any song, keep the mind readers out– WITH THE TASTE OF YOUR LIPS I'M ON A RIDE– HERE'S A VISCERAL FEELING OF FALLING TO INEVITABLE DEATH– iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou– i had an idea for something but i can't fucking remember, i was thinking about it 30 fucking seconds ago– what if i have these tests done, let them dig around in my brain, what if they don't find anything, what if nothing is wrong & i'm making this all up, what if i'm a liar, what if i don't know that i'm making it up because i started faking so young– that makes no fucking sense– HORRIFIC FLASH IMAGE TELLS ME I'M A MONSTER– iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou—

9 year olds shouldn't be
as terrified as i was
of home invasions,
they shouldn't have
intricate rituals in place
to stop them from happening.
the intrusive thoughts
never leave for long,
& the harm of them lingers–
a scent i can't get rid of
permeating throughout
my being.

hide it all behind
40ft tall concrete walls
& a thicket of trees so dense
you can't hear the screams.
i take my pseudo control
where i can get it,
knowing it's just the
illusion of it,
a facade that i've
had in place
since 4 years old
with sharks surrounding me
& the things i did
to keep them
still.

who is God in this metaphore
& can i kick his ass—
i’m sick of being sick,
sores are gping on my back
this bed is collapsing inwards
or maybe just
my innards
rearranging around
fist shaped holes—
i’m collapsing inward.