Eschatology (It's Okay, Welcome Home)

I always knew that the higher power you answer to
Would always drown out the sounds of my calling
I don't fully understand the eschatalogical motivations
That stir your actions
All I know is that when they stirred your hatred for me

I thought my world was ending.

An apocalyptic mess.

Four horsemen galloping gallantly into the fray
Until their faces fall away into the hungry Pestilence
The maggot infested Death with worms crawling from
his sockets

Our vision is always distorted by the wriggling reminders of our wrongdoing.

The blade of Conquest -- hilt fashioned from the skulls of men
who thought their biological disposition was a sin.
Whose emotional attachment they could not detach from the
judgment of stony words.

I don't know what agenda we set forth to wage War on society as we know it.
I missed that meeting.
I don't understand why you designated me as a vector for disease.
In my experience, my hands have always been washed clean
By the salty tears that come with the isolation and persecution of
being what is known as a sexual deviation.

I have seen myself as broken more times than I'd like to admit

A biological uselessness.
A religious threat.

You compound my anxiety, my anxiety, my anxiety--
My anxiety is unmedicated.
It is ameliorated by the momentary shifts of sef-concept that remind me
That who I am is ok.
Who you are is ok.
If I ever hear the phrase
Coming to terms with my sexuality ever again
I will lose my brain.
The word term implies temporary.

I am not temporary.
Stop treating me like a fucking phase.
Stop treating this like a fucking phase.
Stop treating yourself like a fucking phase
To be dealt with.

It is not my place to tell you how to feel
Or mold you into a shape that I think is your most real.
My hands, and mouth are clumsy
You would not turn out the right way.

But it's ok.
It's ok to say you're gay.
I know - the word got caught in the back of my throat the first time
I felt my heart and understood my brain.

My goal - as cliche stands - is a rainbow waiting to reach some pot-of-gold
to find that the passed 5 years are worth it.
That the waiting is worth it.
That the patience is worth it.
That we are all worth it.

Regardless of what any book says, the only reading that needs to be done
is upon the braille on your skin - every bruise and scar is a story of affirmation
Branching out from a narrative of post-apocalyptic desolation that has left you
veiled in the illusion that you are alone.

You are not alone.
We are not alone.

Home is only a ribcage away
And beating of the heart is the knocking on the door.

My door is always open and the doorbell rings
Welcome home.

Night Stand

You walked out the door--so smoothly
I'm sure that you and the doorknob were conspiring against me

Cause when I try to walk out every morning to face the day
It jams shut like a jaw clenched tight before the vocal chords
Strum words the brain doesn't want to say- stay

When you turned the knob
The lock slipped--so smoothly
Like you slipped out of my bed
I do not know you, but I'd love the potential of you to stay
But when you hear noises in the middle of night signaling
EXIT- like blazing door signs
You can't help but stay quiet

It is rude to hold on
So I carry on
Sleeping
Pretending to
Hoping that when I wake up the evidence of you
Will not be planted on my unlocked door

But it always is.

I have always had this thing where I get
The worst anxiety when someone makes the sounds
Of silently leaving in the dark
When that happens- I look at my one night stand
And pull a pill to alleviate the strain
Of knowing that I'll never have to remember your name
It goes against my nature like it goes against yours to stay

I put the pill in my mouth
It's heavy as a jawbreaker

Then you call.

"Dinner at this place I think you'll like?"

I say yes. And that yes.
Hit's me so hard that I spit the pill out.

I look at the night stand.
And then I realize that one night stand is something
We could share
When we grow old together
And we can fill the drawers
With something other than
Pills.