Deliverance

White light
trickled through
a hole in the
abandoned church’s roof.
Dust motes
swam around
your head like a halo
in the last fair rays of summer

and I wondered if
I might make it to heaven

Hell chased my heels like
a rabid dog so long
I was ready to
lie on the ground with
my delicate throat ripped out
like a sacrifice to nothing
when I saw a flash of you

you…

and I saw hope flash before my eyes
like a goddamn burning bush

I took your hand,
you took my breath
and we ran like brimstone rain
chased our cloudless skies
until we stumbled on a church
that hadn’t seen worship
since time could recall.

and how I wanted
to worship.
you.

And you..

stood there so
painfully beautiful
in your agony
that I dragged you
to your knees
on the altar
as we pressed
our foreheads together
whispering psalms
into each other’s
revered inhalations

Our first kiss felt like
church bells sound
on a silent,
winter morning.

Something holy
Something reverent
Something divine
beyond the
four stained walls
of this crumbling building.

We shared testaments
on the vellum lines
of our bodies
and I was reborn
as you wrote
scripture
inside me
and stained my back
with rugburn-stigmata
from the ragged red
Oral Robert’s carpet
filled with such pure passion
and fury that
I wanted  
fuck hell
from existence

I prayed your name
as you showed me
forever
with with your lips
on my chalice,
with my legs locked
around your waist
with our eyes open
in thrashing absolution

You delivered me there.
Then.

Because life itself went stale.
Like the smell of old potatoes
in the pantry

my soul felt like
something musty
hidden in a
dark corner
that left me uneasy
by its utter mundanity

You delivered me  
from the apathetic dirge  
of existence,

from the lassitude
of each banal moment

from the fucking ennui
of just wandering the
earth pretending to
be human
when inside
I was nothing

nothing

and you wore me like
my skin were vestments
while I moaned
your name like
a stolen hymn

I confessed my love
in shaking breaths
and melted into you
while the last kind rays
of summer
etched patinas
on our naked hearts

And I confessed,
my love,
that you
are my deliverance
my reconsecration
my holy ground

because I made it
into heaven
the moment

the fucking  moment

you took me
in your arms


and I am
redeemed