This piece was first published in Quarto’s 2019 Spring Print Edition.
and as if he simply needed something to do with his hands on the day of rest / the good Lord made me like this / my soul attached to dust / brittle translucent chest overflowing / i am the ancestor of longing / i am not evil / i am worth grace / it has been said if you recite a psalm long enough it will coat your heart so even in sleep your blood beats to the rhythm of the lord / i chant to myself: i am not evil slash i am worth grace / my worth the subtext of a psalm unwritten / i have not yet forgiven myself for all that i will never be / these hands break so easily / i try not to crumble / i cling to dust / i remember all the funerals i could not go to / years after and i still fall apart at the stray thought / limbs spilling from the flesh / all the life in it gone by the time it kisses the earth / when i pieced myself together again at the bottom of my sorrows / it was because God willed it / i am not evil / i am not grace / because God willed it / my soul clings to dust / if it was His will i would be happy / it is His will that some whom i loved are no longer here / when a father wills it a house is warmed / i know whom to blame for this chill / in the house of the lord / there is more time lost than i have left / but i will endure / some days i wish i had died before anyone i loved / so i would never have to mourn / or learn to live without them / this is to say i would give anything to see some people again / even my life / what am i to do come days i want to hold my own head / in my hands / what to do but pray / read scripture as psalm / tomorrow i will not be evil i will be worth grace / who to blame for delaying my own funeral / but myself / if i have learned anything from my lifetime of silence from my father / it is that the duty of a man is to endure and to suffer in silence / that it is best if no one else knows you suffer / the evil eye never blinks / and atlas will never shrug / i have endured this earth for so long / martyrdom would be the same as salvation / in all the oceans of hearts i have dived into / i have been searching for a good place to drown / you may sever my head, father and i have no doubt that you will but the one to hurl this body into the sea or the earth will be me / and i will keep on singing / i cling to my soul / i search for the meaning of death / in the maws of the dead / from within them God whispered to me the evil are not worth grace / salvation is far from the wicked because they do not seek it / all the spirit i have is in the seeking / dust clings to me / all i have in me are words / and memories of the dead / how much do i lose until there is nothing left / to take / how many of us did God mold from dust / just to watch be dashed on the rocks / of salvation / if i am to die a sinner / may those i love be remembered as saints / may their ruptured eyes still see paradise somewhere / i have tried just to glance a corner of it / but i have gone blind in the trying / and don’t know how to confess it / if i have learned anything from my brother that was born asleep / and his spirit that has followed me to the depths of my soul / it is that even a dead man must not let suffering stop him / from collapse / i dont know how to ask for help / without shattering / so i will endure / and pray for mercy / until i am erased by it / my soul becoming one with dust