CLICK!*

Inky black pervades the humid club
as sticky bodies, swathed in white,
dig and **** at each other,
vying for an inch or a foot or a mile.
For those few stygian seconds
the heaving throng is silent,
fervent excitement and suspense
pulsating through the sweaty mass
like a coveted contagion,
until the stage lights come up,
a blinding spectacle of whites and
violets, daring the crowd to blink,
lest we miss the anticipated entrance.

Finally, the group arrives,
a ghastly spectacle of half-naked flesh
framed with vicious horns and alien body
armor—metallic spikes, blades, and skulls.
They grab their ancient instruments,
introduce themselves as the Scumdogs of
the Universe, and unleash a torrent
of notes so loud, clashing, and violent
that my eardrums cry aloud in protest.
The notes pulsate through the bar,
a cloudburst of liquid metal that
engulfs every heaving body.

Immediately, the waxen sea erupts
into a storm, thrashing and writing
in a heated frenzy so fevered and
chaotic that an uninformed observer
might believe he was witnessing a
a mass seizure—or a barbaric ****.
While the music assaults my chest
cavity, little circles open up amongst
the heaving mob, and people of all
shapes and sizes run in vicious circles,
limbs thrown about haphazardly,
tempestuous bruise-makers.
The temperature in the club rises,
as does the stench of cheap beer
and unadulterated body odor,
but suddenly, the melody ceases.

A greasy, ****** fellow joins the band,
and gives a self-righteous speech before
the first lambs are brought to slaughter.
Caricatures of political figures, more than
seven feet tall, stumble onto the dais—
forced into a faux boxing ring.
The throng howls like a pack
of bloodthirsty wolves as the entertainers
sever counterfeit limbs, purposefully
sending a shower of red cornstarch
over our hungry, eager faces.
In the midst of the flailing crowd
I am pushed closer to the stage,
and am bathed in this homage
to human nature, this gladiatorial
spectacle. It is a fight to the death,
and culminates in a beheading,
which unleashes a deluge of
costume blood into the congregation
with such force that I can taste
its sickly sweet satire in my mouth.

I. Amazing Grace, How Sweet The Sound

Dear Jesus—
I’d pray while curled up
late at night, in my twin bed—
Thank You for my salvation.
Thank You for leaving your Father,
and enduring such cruel betrayal,
and dying such a wicked death at the
hands of Your own people on the cross—
and so on, and so forth.
Thank you for my family,
for my Mom and my Dad,
for Madelyn and Josh,
because, even though we don’t
always get along, we love each other.
And thank You for my dog, Max.
He really is the best!
This is where I’d smile,
picturing the happy, chubby Beagle,
gray fur just starting to creep in.
Thank You for our house, and our cars,
and our church, and Pastor Amsbaugh,
and my friends Ashley, Danny, Amanda,
Jonathan, Laura, Alexa, and Josh—
et cetera, et cetera.
Thank you for all of your blessings.
There are too many to count, Jesus.
I pray for Grandmom and Granddad Parrish,
please watch over their health, because they
need Your healing touch, and please,
please, please, save Granddad,
before it’s too late.
I also pray for Grandmom and Granddad Spicer—
even though they’re healthy,
they need to get saved too.
Heaven won’t be the same without them.
I ask You to help me with school,
help me to study hard and get
good grades, and to be a good student
for Mom, and to always honor You.
In Your name, Amen.
Then I would ***** the lights,
and stare at the ceiling,
sometimes for hours,
hoping my thoughts,
my prayers,
broke through the layers
of paint and plaster and wood,
made it all the way to Heaven,
to Jesus,
who’d be sitting in His throne,
listening so intently,
just waiting to answer each
and every request.


II. That Saved A Wretch Like Me

The first time I got saved, I was four,
too young to understand the implications
of raising my hand and following my
Sunday school teacher’s repeat-after-me,
rinse and repeat prayer.
I lived my childhood as the good little
Christian my parents needed me to be,
following the Ten Commandments,
attending church three times a week,
even trying to enjoy the dull services,
the endless sitting and standing,
the same hymns every week—
but I was no different than that prayer
nearly a decade before,
just going through the motions.
At twelve, after an evangelist spewed
fire and brimstone for an hour,
my Mary Janes were trembling,
and I prayed again, hoping this time,
maybe, I would feel that peace
that passeth all understanding.
But still, I was lonely and searching—
my salvation was hollow, useless.
So, at fifteen, while tucked away at a
summer camp in the Appalachians
I prayed again, begging,
This is the last time, God.
I’m trying, but You’ve got to help me.
The bitterness at my abandonment
rose in my heart like the pretty balloon that
a child has grasped onto so tightly all
afternoon, but their fingers grow tired
after a long day in the heat, and
so the helium carries it up, up, up,
into the atmosphere,
into to the sun.


III.  I Once Was Lost, But Now Am Found

I was seventeen, staring at my grandfather’s
lifeless body; he was clutching a decaying
photograph of my grandmother,
who had died only two years
before in this same bedroom.
He could have been in a deep sleep,
but then the old, rotted windows
would have been rattling from his snores.
I thought of the last prayer I ever said—
God, he’s dying. Just take him to Heaven. Please.
But God was never listening, was He?

Each flick of your strong forefinger
unleashes another surge—
BANGBANGBANGBANG!—
and the explosive percussion is mirrored
by the rapid battering of your heart,
the backbeat of a silent jihad.
The air is thick with the echoing
screams of the shoppers as they
scatter between tall, unsteady racks
of clothing, hair dye and toothpaste,
hiding beneath circular tables in cafés,
sliding flat on their traitorous stomachs
to cower under dusty old cars.
The fear in this place is tangible—
You can smell it, taste it, see it all about you—
it causes your blood to sing.

You enter a market with your comrades,
and as you have done in every other store,
you fire your weapon into the air—
BANGBANGBANGBANG!—
sure to clip the quickly dispersing mass of
people shrinking behind a dusty
cigarette display, and you are pleased
by the sight of two men hitting
the ground with a dull thud. Their
blood pools as a warning, a tribute.
Then you announce loudly, confidently
that you are only here for the non-Muslims—
the Americans and the Kenyans—
that everybody else need only be a hostage,
not a martyr for a cause that does not
concern them; children will be spared.
You disband to interrogate the fearful
and to root out the traitors,
to determine who will live and
and who is doomed to perish—
you have become a ruler of this shopping
mall, reduced to its shivering bones.
You can see the cowed lies etched into
the lines of their faithless faces,
and with another flick of your finger,
you send them to face Allah without
even the slightest hint of hesitation.

In a far corner of the market sits a
meat counter, where locals buy their
****** flesh, both clean and unclean,
You sneak behind and discover
a woman dressed in black,
her milky face a thin veil of calm,
hands clasping those of her two young
children, a small boy and a willowy girl.
The boy’s green shirt professes
his love for New York City.
All three stare at you in petrified silence,
and for a few moments, you just gaze
straight into the woman’s wide eyes.
“You said children would not be
harmed?” the mother asks softly,
each word flowing sharply through her
accent which cannot be American,
and she stands suddenly. This action
is quite startling, you remember later—
you are already on edge, your
finger still on the trigger, and
somehow a bullet lands in her thigh.
The mother is screaming, pulling her
daughter close as the blood pours forth,
an accidental fountain, but her fingers
cannot reach the boy, who is standing,
walking over to you, so close you could
tear him to shreds, his body would
be Swiss cheese—unidentifiable.
“You are a bad man,” the boy says,
narrowing his tiny green eyes into
excruciating slivers and pointing at you,
“let us go.”

Her screams ring in your ears,
a cacophony of terror,
and your heartbeat slows to a clop
as the boy’s finger remains pointed at
your heaving chest, an honest accusation.
“Come!” you screech, waving
your rifle in the air like a toy.
At the front of the market, the mother
can barely walk, so she loads her children
into a cold, shining metal trolley.
You see an array of candies, and grab
two chocolate bars, handing one to each.
“Please forgive me,” you hear yourself
saying, “we are not monsters.”
The girl is crying, clutching her candy,
but the boy just stares through you.
“You must convert to Islam,”
you tell the desperate mother, who is
loading an injured boy into the cart.
“We are not monsters. We are not monsters.”
She does not speak, she only pushes the
trolley, limping slowly.
“You must convert to Islam. You must convert.”
You help the woman maneuver the
cart through the bodies strewn across
the pale tiles of the shopping mall,
and with every repetition of gunfire—
BANGBANGBANGBANG!—
you reassure yourself, and the woman,
“We are not monsters. Please forgive me.”
She stops again to pick up a different child,
though this one is screaming in French
for her mother and must be forced.
“You must convert to Islam.
Please forgive me.”
As you reach tall, glass double doors,
you pause, knowing you must stay behind.
The brilliance of the sun blots their
figures out of your vision, so you simply yell,
“Please forgive me!”

The irony of having funerals
in churches with immense chapels
is that they can hold a congregation,
and the viewing line looks half a
mile or longer, perhaps to eternity.
The closer my family gets to the
polished box, surrounded with
flora and photos and an American
flag, the harder my stomach knots.
I can’t quite remember the last
time I saw your face—not including
the card I’m crushing in my hand,
and that terribly beautiful video—
and you’ll know, they’ll all know,
that I’ve forgotten its features,
the gentle curve of your jaw,
the purple puff under your eyes,
the tiny scar above your left eyebrow,
even the dusty freckles on your cheeks.
My fraudulent tears could be spotted
from space and everyone will know.

But I have this memory, it’s been
haunting me—no, you’ve been
haunting me, following me.
I was just a kid, maybe seven, so
you would have been fourteen,
and I was playing in those Fisher Price
skates that strap over your sneakers,
and we were in the church
parking lot, trying to skate faster;
I was always wanting to move
faster, faster, faster back then.
You had a new bike, and a soft
spot for the younger children,
so we found a long tree branch,
and you towed me around like
some sort of first-grade caboose,
until I lost my grip and flew
careening onto the pavement,
scraping my knee open—
a gaping mess of blood and flesh.
As we snuck in the back door of
the church, and dug through
the outdated first aid kit,
you begged me not
to tell our mothers what had
happened, and I was just trying
not to bleed on my favorite shoes,
so when, after cleaning me up, you
gave me his favorite model, a Captain
America action figure, I couldn’t
help but smile through my snotty
tears. “Don’t worry,” you said,
“You probably won’t have a scar,
and now you have an awesome toy!”

I’m turning this scene over and over
as we come up to the casket—
you had friends your own age, but
you always seemed to make time
for me and my siblings, the runts—
until, for the last time, I see your face.
It is serene and sallow, too quiet, too still;
your eyes have been closed, chin tucked
against your uniform, and I notice
the insignia on your cold shoulder—
Sergeant First Class, US Army—
and for some reason, that brings
forth a flood of tears so vicious
and relentless, I can’t control myself,
so I just stand in front of your corpse,
heaving, wracked with violent sobs.

After a few minutes
of this humiliating display,
somebody tries to push me along,
so I put on my best crazy lady face
and hiss like a cornered cat,
planted firmly, a weeping statue.
The hand is removed,
and I cry until I am
dry heaving, the chapel spinning.
I place a hand on the coffin,
hoping you don’t mind that I’m
causing such a scene,
reach into my pocket and search
until I find the figurine, placing
the old Captain America toy in
the crook of your elbow.

Our hearts beat mighty with body’s delight,
With those colorful little squares we ate,
And the colors danced on the walls all night.

The carpet glowed in gold and purple light,
The couches breathed softly under our weight,
Our hearts beat mighty with body’s delight.

The notes of the music were slim and slight,
We swayed primeval with an awkward gait,
And the colors danced on the walls all night.

The bedroom wall so pristine, so white,
Begged us to please come and to create.
Our hearts beat mighty with body’s delight.

Inspired, we drew our spirits’ insight,
So our lines swirled and dissolved into fate,
And the colors danced on the walls all night.

The images twirled into daylight,
While our frames continued to oscillate,
Our hearts beat mighty with body’s delight,
And the colors danced on the walls all night.

Like bladed birds of steel they glide and wing,
Across the ice without any dismay,
Fearing no hard body check or cold swing.

They circle the net in frozen ballet,
Flitting about like puck-handling mice,
Tenacity drips from each ounce of their play.

They dazzle with grace all over the ice,
With a jump, a spin, and a pirouette,
Always ready to pay a high price.

They give it all ‘till they’re soaked through with sweat.
We watch with joy from our perch high above.
Our yells, their chirping—it’s quite a duet!

These men change the game with the drop of a glove,
And so, bloodthirsty, we give them our love.

You were a beacon in the cloudy sky,
A little gorging, ravenous black hole.
You devoured us all until we died,
Stripping us down to our trembling souls.
Though your smile shines dazzlingly bright,
Your friendship was little more than a ruse
To bring us closer to your burning light.
Who could stand for such cold, heartless abuse?
Yet I could not bear to be separate
From such a supermassive part of me,
So I dove headfirst—it was too late.
You ate the crumbs of my love gleefully.
You danced from your perch in the glinting night,
And I hoped none else would repeat my blight.