Dedicated to those who choose guns over children.
Rise and stir,
Be ever bold,
Breath like myrrh
And praises manifold.
Bring your offerings
To these, our altars:
Screams, brass casings,
Your sons and daughters.
Behold, your sacrifice,
Scorned and resented,
These young lives
Guard the second amendment.
Without her,
My mojodojocasahouse
Is not a home.
Just a horseless hovel
Where male failings
Become so self-evident.
An imprint
Of a thing that once was,
But is now no longer.
How I long for her return
To supplant the ghost
That lingers in her wake;
To hear her say,
“My love,
You are Kenough.”
God’s not dead,
She’s just tired
Of all this Hell
We put ourselves through.
It was never meant
To be like this,
The hurt.
But like so many new parents,
She’s still learning.
She’s still growing up,
So be gentle,
Because this
Is new for all of us.
We are all
Making this up.
So, please,
Let go of the guilt
Held hostage
Over your hearts,
Because someone
Has to teach God
How to let go of a grudge.
Ought God be feared?
Or pitied?
To have formed us
In divine likeness,
She sought to love herself.
She tired of being alone.
So from the dust we arose.
And we
Could not make her happy.
So what then is God
If not abdication
And abandonment?
A damning silence
From beyond the stars
Watching our suffering
With such knowing.
Listen,
She is begging
For our forgiveness.
Dividing flesh from spirit
Requires precise incisions.
Quick and defined strokes
Setting souls free,
Though—
More often than not,
Most, I admit,
Go quite unwillingly.
Morgan stared into the deep darkness, watching massive tentacle-like arms breach and retreat back into the infernal vortex. He never felt so aware of his own insignificance as he did in that moment.
“Okay,” he answered, “who are you?”
“How can you know the unknowable? Or apprehend a god? Can a mote of dust lay hold the heavens? Can you devour entire worlds? Two more left.” Its voice echoed across the galaxy, shaking heaven and earth.
“That’s bullshit! That’s not an answer!” Morgan shouted.
“Rebuke me again, and you will have never existed.”
“What does that mean?”
“You will have never been born, never lived, and never been known. Whatever pitiful sentiments anchor you to this life will have never been. Your thread will be plucked from the Great Tapestry. One.”
“No! Please! That wasn’t a question!”
“You have asked, and We have answered. The bargain is kept. You have one more question.”
“I need a moment to think.”
“I have eternity.”
Morgan wracked his brain. His first question resulted in more questions. His second was an accident. The last question had to be carefully woven if he were to find some way to stop the entity from tearing apart the universe.
“Okay . . .”
America
Is a trigger pulled
In a classroom
Full of six year olds
While their daddies
Fuck trafficking victims
And blame Queer people
For the price of gas.
Knocking, Tapping
Against the wall,
Skittering, creeping
Down the hall.
Scratching, scraping
Beneath the bed,
Laughing, screaming
They woke up dead.
I am young and old, here and now, then and yet to be. A 41-year-old husband and father, a 21-year-old kid upon the sea, and the child loved by his father’s fists. I am a convergence removed from time and space in temporary condition only to be returned to find former things replaced by new. The world did not wait for me, and in many ways, nor I it. And like myself, it was familiar in appearance but radically transformed.
You told me,
To love my neighbor.
You told me,
To live like Jesus.
You told me,
To see with compassion,
To love without prejudice,
To look upon the least of these,
And do for them
What I’d want done for me.
But—
When I did these things,
You told me,
I was no longer your son.
She fell like rain.
Like a star.
Graceful
Up until the crash.
A lifetime of being there
Until one day
She wasn’t.
Gone in an instant.
Erased from time.
Leaving behind
Only the smudge lines
Of her smile.
And so, the black smoke rises, and the sky falls, and those who’ve drawn heaven down upon our heads dare not look up. Cowards and curs fault sin beyond the chapel step and disregard the unsettled bones preying within the holy sanctuary.
O, that we might blot out our forebearers and cast off their crimes. Is there no justice in Heaven? Has God been so struck blind? Do not the angels watch in wonder and rally to our cry?
Divine stars! Align yourselves against the wicked of this age who, with braids of gold, fashion a noose for us all. Let them sway as leaves in their gallow groves. Or let the rattling rebuke of their little god empty their thoughts and bid them sleep and sleep forevermore.
Maybe that’s the story-
The one we make.
The one we craft
Out of the meaning
We thread together
From utterances
Gathered on the wind.
What magic we carry!
The power to name
The complexity inside ourselves
So that, in some small way,
We might be known.
I was 13 the first time I tried to take my life. I was a good Christian boy in a good Christian home trying my damnedest to live a good Christian life. From the age of (at least) 10 years old, I suffered from an undiagnosed depression.
At 16, I went to my sperm-donor and told him I thought I needed help because I wanted to kill myself. He suggested I see our pastor–an inept, biblically illiterate man with non-existent counseling skills (so bad that he has since handed counseling responsibilities to other members of his cult). I had seen this man, sat with him. It didn’t help.
When I told my sperm-donor that I thought I needed to see a professional, he screamed:
“IF THE CHURCH CAN’T FIX YOUR PROBLEM, THEN YOU DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM! NO SON OF MINE IS GOING TO SEE A SHRINK!”
Those words are etched in my memory, and I never opened up to he or my mother again after that. I began cutting the hell out of myself because I believed I deserved to suffer—after all the depression wasn’t real, I just wasn’t praying enough.1
After a few close calls, I was diagnosed as an adult with PTSD, bipolar type 1—rapid cycling, among other health concerns. Some of these diagnoses could have been prevented had I received help and treatment when I asked for it. At the very least, I probably wouldn’t have tried to hurt myself so many times. The adults in my life prevented me from getting help—largely because they worried how it would look to have a kid receiving treatment for mental illness.
I share this story because I almost died without the help I needed. My parents were the hurdle I could not overcome. I was lucky, I lived. Not every story turns out like mine.
To those who appear to hold the idea that bills like California AB6652 are infringing on parental rights, respectfully, no one should care or value that position. It is a disingenuous stance that serves to reinforce limited understandings of the world in which our kids are growing up.
It isn’t the 1970s or the 1980s anymore. The world, our country, has drastically changed. For example, how many active shooter drills did kids in the 70s and 80s participate in when they were in kindergarten?3
These bills do exactly what certain theatrical positions and ideologies falsely claim to do—they protect kids. That’s what we all want, right?
Anyhow, that’s it. That’s my soapbox.
__________
1. In an ironic twist of fate, one of the cultists who used to push this narrative of “not praying enough” would die years later from cancer. It is unkind, but I can’t help but wonder if they weren’t praying enough.
2. “An act to amend, repeal, and add Section 6924 of the Family Code, relating to minors.” AB-665 Minors: consent to mental health services. Introduced by Assembly Member Wendy Carrillo. September 11, 2023. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB665.
3. The answer is largely zero.
These are the bones—
From 1987 to 2004, my family was part of an Evangelical/Fundamentalist Imminent Rapture cult founded during the 1960s/70s Jesus People Movement. My siblings and I departed the cult c. 2004. My mother died a member (death unrelated) and my sperm-donor, as far as I know, is still connected to it. Their Christianity is the result of a long tradition of biblical illiteracy, superstition, and an intentional spurning of education.
The structure of power centers on the pastor. As a non-denominational organization, there were no outside checks or balances. It was assumed the pastor was uniquely attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. He (because always men) surrounds himself with yes-people, an inner circle faithfully adhering to his word and direction. They clamor for his approval—keeps them inline, as it were. The pastor is charismatic and charming; he knows how to play the crowd.
There is an emphasis on being a good Christian. Good, of course, is determined by comparing yourself to the more popular members. Popular members were always good, and you always wanted their approval. We enjoyed the same things and disliked the same things. Doing differently singled you out as being in a questionable state of Christian life.
The systems reflected our white supremacy and reinforced them. It was expected that a good Christian identify as a Republican and view abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights as an assault against Christians. Future generations were expected to vote against their own interests so to hurt sinners and make America a “Christian nation.” We spoke in dog whistles to convey the problematic politics of our system in order to maintain plausible deniability if confronted about our “unspoken” culture.
We were isolationists. The outside world was evil and meant us harm. We were different and set apart from the world. We were in a spiritual war against the outside. We received our orders, ethics, and morality in a verticle modality—direct from God . . . or rather the pastor’s interpretation of God.
Fear was our primary means of control—a fear of Hell, a fear of “accidentally” serving the devil, a fear of missing the rapture, a fear of suffering and pain earned through disobedience, mistakes, and missteps.
Parts of this structure will look and sound familiar if you follow American politics. Christofascism, a term coined in 1970 by theologian Dorothee Sölle, has deep roots, and it is cults like the one I grew up in that provided the fertile soil that has allowed it to blossom into the horrid abomination you see today.
This is the structure in which I was kept for 17 years. It is from this setting, and that of my childhood home, that I will draw my deconstructionist thoughts, experience, and theological discourse.
October 14, 1991
Patient A.
Transcript.
The mind’s eye sees and remembers. A sudden rush, and then the sweet scent of summer catches in her hair, follows in her wake like wind caught sails racing towards safe harbor. She was harbor, ship, and sea; we felt safe with her, even as we weathered through the storms.
I see her eyes, an endless descent into the Abyss, always staring back—even when we averted our gaze. She watched over us from the periphery of our vision like a shadow that vanishes the moment you try to capture its presence.
Maybe we weren’t so safe? Screaming, hands reaching, grabbing, hurting, choking. Please, let her go! She didn’t know! Delilah collapses. She never got back up again. Devin disappeared. Then there was me. Why was I spared?
End of Session 1.
These are the ghosts that wander through the infinite corridors of a divergent, and admittedly, unsound mind. Some belong to a troubled past, others arise from social decay, while others are utterly fabricated. I speak them into being, bring them out for examination, and in doing so, unintentionally examine and critique myself.
Continue reading “The Inevitable Introduction”
Void Engineer 