take me to church

My mother told me, Remember, your body is a temple, and I am still trying to work out what that means. Is a temple really a place where people go to throw stones; am I supposed to see so much of my own blood on the altar? If I am a wonder, I guess that explains all the men who came to rip everything good out of me, until I had only the halls and my loneliness. No one sings hymns here anymore, and I wonder: If my body is really a temple, and I am its god, is this how I am supposed to believe in me?

We scream for absolution, for the holiness that was stolen from us when the weight of the world was dropped onto our shoulders, and we were told it was our fault, our fault, our fault. We crave blood; we want to rip out our throats and seep into the earth, the sea, the sky, to live inside this world, be a part of this eternity that cannot fit between the lungs and the stomach, in that gaping hole beneath our ribs. We claw for sacrifice, for burning down our cities, these broken, evil things covered in the dust of our own corruption, painted with the guts of our brothers, all in the name of peace. We want to be reborn in the fire of the old world as titans with spines, as gods with teeth. We, who have written our sins in the stars. We, who have dreamt the entire universe into being. We, who will live forever.