a god made me in spite of its own image
a crooked, vile wooden doll
made me inside its mouth
and made another
and another
inside it
spat me out and declared war
with my body
and my body within it
and all these bodies
and their every uncouth edge
is god singing chants to make me
make me
like god
in the bronzed upper armour i carry up front
in the face matching the sun’s colour
god’s gilded, burnished skin chafing into me
making sounds that create the universe
and give me a tongue
and teach me to speak
within
the face is a plateau of gold
that is searing and soft and malleable
and made of want
the blood of which keeps staining my skin
god with its voice
keeps pouring into me a soul
and kissing
and kissing my mouth
into a wound
the mouth i open and turn green
for people to stand testimony
of god winning over me endlessly
when i sleep, god keeps a hand
over my heart
like a stake rooting it to place
aliving it
clenching it with all its life
in the girth of his palm
his arm growing into my ribs
clawing into my bones
rotting through my meat
a sickly warmth going up in fumes
that i inhale and exhale dust
made of my lungs
in another face god took me
to be his lover
made weaves of my skin with his blunt nails
and built a bed out of it
for my hands to know god
and my hands to know hands
god made me chew on his flesh
and sip on his blood
the root of my eyes, waxed
for here i cannot see beyond him
and when i wail and scream for deliverance
this god
saws off my jaw and stuffs it with salt
and calls it passion
dips a thumb past my lips and watches it grow
into the back of my skull
a weed
flowering red
blinding and venomous
like god –
it stops right before my face
the last, the smallest puppet of god,
a seed
so large it scares the god
of its own creation
so small in its colour
in its breath
in its word
this face cannot speak in god’s tongue
and stares unflinching down god’s throat
as it would at death
and god cradles it in his lap
and paints and paints over it
god’s name is a sea of my voice in its incantation
an endless loop of making and unmaking me
endless violence and chastity
endlessly god saying
“you”
“you”
“you”

Cover Image: Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash