#epiphany.txt

CONCEPT: the sun sets and the sky looks like raspberries. we reach up and take one from a bush, bursting and juicy. the clouds touch our fingers shyly and we laugh and laugh until our stomachs hurt in the best way.

CONCEPT: we are becoming dull with age. we are still alive. i tell you about the raspberries and you tell me we are too old to believe in magic. i ask, is it the growing up that leaves us empty? you stay silent. the next morning there is a note on the counter. fear, it says. fear. i wonder how much courage it took to write it down.

CONCEPT: a home in which fear is an invite only guest. and we do not send an invitation. do not even throw a party.

CONCEPT: the day ends and you barge into our dorm room. yell and yell. grab my arm. chase me out into the night. you say, look at the sky. it is all cranberry and red. look, see how the wind grows strawberries? see the fields? how they breathe on indefinitely? and, lord, the look on your face. it is breathtaking. your mouth twisting up in joy.

CONCEPT: we eat from the vine. the stars wink their little eyes at us. the moon listens as we weave her a story. nothing stills until dawn.

bury your god 

in a box in the backyard.

it can be a small box—your 

gaseous god will expand 

or shrink

as needed. it should, however, be a box 

for your god is cuboid and

deserves to be comfortable. 

line the box with aluminum foil 

to prevent your god seeping 

into the soil and contaminating 

the neighbors’ vegetable garden.

the deeper the hole the better

but we’ll understand if 

you stay shallow for easier 

emergency access to your god.

kiss your god-box goodbye then

gently lower

or toss

or slam-dunk it

into your god-hole.

fill the god-hole with things that are

not

your 

god

until you can no longer spot the god-box,

then fill it some more after that.

lay sod atop and walk away.

do not return to the god-spot

until you can no longer remember

where the god-spot is.

and then when you do return—and

you will, of course, return—consider

whether finding your god

is worth     tearing up

IMAGE ONE:

God’s mouth is where everything goes

to shrivel & die, shrouded

in faith & devotion

as his teeth close in around you,

caging you in, sharp & slippery.

tongue soft & wet, wrapping you up

& holding you down, his throat leading down.

with nowhere else to go,

do you trust him enough

to let him consume you?

(the way so many others

think they consume him?)

he’s forcing you down

with hundreds of other souls, nothing special

about any of them.

you fall down, clinging

onto His insides but it’s nothing

He hasn’t experienced hundreds of times

before.

there’s scratches & scars

older than half the world.

you’re in his stomach & it’s full of people

just like you, scared & confused,

slowly getting eaten away

by the stomach acid.

(God’s no different & Adam was shaped

in his image, afterall. like father, like son.)

God eats at them

until there’s nothing left.

—

IMAGE TWO:

God’s mouth is where everything goes

to shrivel & die, shrouded

in faith & devotion

as his teeth close in around you,

caging you in, sharp & slippery.

tongue soft & wet, wrapping you up

& holding you down, his throat leading down.

with nowhere else to go,

do you trust him enough

to let him consume you?

(the way so many others

think they consume him?)

he’s forcing you down

with hundreds of other souls, nothing special

about any of them.

you fall down, clinging

onto His insides but it’s nothing

He hasn’t experienced hundreds of times

before.

there’s scratches & scars

older than half the world.

you’re in his stomach & it’s full of people

just like you, scared & confused,

slowly getting eaten away

by the stomach acid.

(God’s no different & Adam was shaped

in his image, afterall. like father, like son.)

God eats at them

channel five news says

there has been a crash on the i-5

all five passengers hospitalized

angel numbers,

romance, jealousy, an omen

(good or bad?)

homesickness and lifesickness,

for very different reasons say

to each other, “i wish we were

on interstate five”

homesickness poems his misery

lifesickness rejects it

consciousness is a risk you have to take

but its more than just opening your eyes

its also accepting mortality

usually teens grow out of this

whoever let the sicknesses

be twenty is an enabler

home turns to the life, asks

“haven’t you bored of me yet”

and life replies

“i’ll bore of you when you die”