your god lies dead and buried
in an unmarked grave. a radical—
a terrorist charged with treason.
for defying the Roman Throne,
they shoved a crown wove from thorns
onto his brow and called him "traitor."

but two thousand years later,
if the homeless rabbi
walked the Earth,
he'd be in the streets
with the anarchists,
fighting to end the wars
that plant kids' corpses
like seeds in the ground
that only yield new bombs.

he'd call your president
a ******* fascist.
he'd denounce Israel for bombing
his homeland and try to cease
the genocide in Palestine.
your savior would stand
shoulder-to-shoulder
with water protectors
in North Dakota, shouting, "mni wiconi!"
in the faces of cops guised in riot gear.

can't you see, pharisee? or is the log
in your eye blurring your vision?
snakes like you, who stand on street corners
preaching the "Good News," were the very same
self-righteous fools he detested.
you can't white-wash the legacy of the Nazarene.
you stand on the wrong side of history.
if Jesus walked this earth right now,
your hands would hold him down
while the State drove nails through his palms.
i only wish the fantasy was true,
that i could see your face as he said,
"away from me, evildoer.
truly, i never knew you!"

Seraphine wields her dagger like a torch
to illuminate her path—a figure at once
youthful and monolithic. Mother Earth
caresses her as flowers bloom amidst
the bloodbath. the old skulls of dead
fascists rest in silver platters. three arrows
plunged into the hearts of charlatans,
an Iron Front, disrupting decorum.
the celosia petals burn like a bonfire
around Seraphine as her nāgī coils
like an ouroboros, slyly smirking.
Seraphine works the blade back and forth,
sawing through the ****'s neck, smiling
while decapitating the demagogue.

hell,
i maintain,
is watching those
you love languish
in agony, powerless
to alleviate their
tragedy.
i would suffer
forever
if i could just
absolve
your woe.

you set my neurons firing
like an arsonist in the foyer
of the old abandoned church
built within the synaptic gaps
of my brain matter.

burning bridges was the only way
to keep from sinking with the anchors
chained to my feet.
i find myself, instead, adrift
inside your bloodstream.

so scrape the match and watch phosphate
sputter like the final gasp of a dying sun.
let the shaft of wood tumble end-over-
end into the kerosene amassed at my feet.
raze what's left of me. set me free.

i hung myself
from your lips
the first time
we kissed,
a transcendent
moment, shining
effervescent
as the sun.

love was the rope
i wound into a noose
on that rooftop.
an audience of stars
looked on, voyeurs
lightyears beyond.

years have lapsed since then,
but i return invariably
to those moments we spent
absorbed to the point of ecstasy
as if time were a flat circle
and i was meant to live eternally
caught between the fragments
of those seconds.

fixated by the temporary transgressions
we permit ourselves
every few months.
revolving like a planet
tethered to its star
by the insistent arms of gravity.
we're partners in crime, stealing borrowed time,
trying in vain to recreate
the first fissures
of a friendship
that fractured our lives
like a fragmentation grenade.

consistently,
i become convinced,
as time moves on
and i remain transfixed,
that maybe i was meant to love
but not be loved in return.

wind me up
like a VHS
tape. tap
play, flay
my skin,
expose the meat
beneath
these rotten limbs.

stop.

trapped in a spider's web
of microfilament
ruptured inside plastic
cassette fractures,
fault-lines
from the wear
and tear
of constant
replay.

rewind.

a favorite scene
that seems to scream
of bliss
but has become
the site of such
anguish.

play.

if only
i could excise
these moments,
tape the frayed
fragments back
together
with scotch-tape.
delete the scene
and set the film
ablaze.

some people are sharp
as shattered glass.
they’re shards
that draw blood
at the slightest touch.
wounded by the world,
dashed by stones
thrown by dying gods.
but piece together
the scattered fragments
and you’ll find stained-glass,
crystalline cathedrals, burgeoning
like a molten parison.