i always go on about how much influence emmanuel has had over beto, how close they were  &  all that  &  while i have touched on the subject of his mom...  i don’t think i’ve expressed how important she is to beto.  all things given,  he’s learned to cope with their past to some degree, never past that.  he’s grown now,  he’s gone his own direction.  he knows she loves him.  but nothing can change the fact that at many points he felt like he fell second to her job.  he hasn’t ever taken back what he said to her about her seeming to love her job more than she loved him  &  he doesn’t intend to,  even if he knows she does love him more,  because in all honesty ?  there are still moments where he falls into that doubt,  where he’s just uncertain.  he isn’t okay with that,  but he’s okay with not being okay.

ALL SIN IS SEEN EQUAL;    &    God doesn’t cater to thieves,    no matter how holy or how many times he’s humbly stood between the benches in front of an altar or how many confessions he’s attended to    [  He might have even grown tired of it,    the bright eyed boy walking in,    BURNING    —    (  he always is  ),    to a whitewashed chapel,    effulgent between the fingers of morning light arriving from the stained glass windows  ]    &    the protection the rosary compressed between something only akin to nylon at TOUCH    &    his chest extends only   so far  in its reaches.    that’s to say his luck,    divinely given or coincidence,    has boiled against the palms of his hands    &    left their skin a vibrant red.

SEE,    FIEND,    HOW   THE   SUN   FOLLOWS   HIM    &    its burning eyes watch the valleys from the cliffs    &    plateaus unblinking.  its dogs guard each horizon at the ends of the sun - bleached purlieus    &   Christ himself observes off the golden cross hung at his neck demanding some   ancient atonement while he accounts for something unseen,  unborn.     ❛   could’ve sworn i’d seen your face coming outta BLACKWATER.    but   that   sure   as   hell   ain’t   the   only   place   i’d   seen   it.   ❜

☀️/    KARMA

❛    can’t say i didn’t hesitate to find you.    ❜     the stories were kind but rumors always left a rotten taste in his mouth.    everything new - york did,   he simply didn’t say,   much less when he was running its street a boy run away from home that isn’t home.    sounds of the night   &   people who become two - legged things prowling lower than foxes in back - alley passageways littered with trashes from food to bile to food with bile.    the echoed resonance that bounces off of high - rises to obscure the direction of the church bell’s ringing because the city doesn’t want you to believe in salvation cause salvation’s one less rustic death fugitive from the traffic   &   walked away unscathed   &   where is profit in that?    manhattan is a rich man’s playground   &   the outskirts are where the counterfeit mothers   &   fathers laugh counting the monetary value of wood chips.