There was once a place I thought
Sanctuary
Shouldn’t I have?
But blood escaped my veins
And waited patiently under my skin
In the places where love should have been.
My sanctuary was a night garden.
Flowering vines grew around my body
And curled around my throat like a necklace.
I carefully tended every dark bloom
While I feared their poison.
Was that darkness so comforting after all?
I thought I was more beautiful for my scars.
I thought I was.
Were you also shamed
For being born female?
Did you feel the need to apologize
For being made of curved lines
And soft skin,
For having a mind of your own?
Did you learn how to cast down your eyes
Cover up,
Be respectable,
While a wild heart beat in your chest?
I picture you laced into a corset
Or maybe dutifully underneath a man you did not love
Your body like an offering.
Was your wandering mind
The only thing you could call your own?
When you allowed the forbidden thought,
To what exotic place did you go?
What poems did you write,
What music did you orchestrate?
Could a canvas hold all of the colors you dreamed in?
What rules did you defy
In the name of impropriety?
Who was the lover who finally tamed the wildness of you?
In the morning, when you dressed the part again,
Did you condense your ocean into a single drop
Hold it in your palm and feel the weight of it,
The passion and the possibilities that you would never live?
Was it a bitter pill to take?
Sometimes I look in the mirror
And see a demure set of green eyes
With worlds in them, unrealized,
Right before I blink.
Are they yours?
Did you swallow your screams when you brought your daughters into the world?
I sleep, and I dream your sorrow.
I wake, and I carry all of your pain and hope.
If I let my mind wander
I might picture you, here
Where I am most vulnerable
Opening to you.
I might have allowed myself
The thought of
Drawing you into deeper waters
Than you have known before
To a place of emerald green secrets
That was only mine until now.
If I did not feel so much
And judge so little
I would not have such reckless fantasies.
(It is a far different thing
To bare soul than body.
What if, intertwined so completely with you,
I drown?)
But held here by the curiosity
Of how this might feel
I wonder if the risk of opening
Is worth the chance to find out.
Will you be there with me
When the show is over
When the curtain falls
When the applause fades?
In the forgetting,
Will you
(Take my hand)
Go with me into the rain
Without an umbrella
Run to the taxi
Let me lay my head on your shoulder
(I’ll invite you in)
Stay the night
Just this time?
We are not promised tomorrow.
I want to forget
And remember everything
All at once.
Your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, you said
And because I was 7 years old I believed you.
You fashioned nightmares for me of a lake of fire
Unfathomable terrors I could not comprehend
(You go on burning in agony forever, and ever, and ever, and the torture never stops) and so
I was baptized in a church basement by a pastor named Larry.
He had orange hair and thick glasses.
The curtains raked open, exposing me in dingy yellow light
A girl too small to see over the plexiglass, breathing fast, chest deep in water
Desperate for salvation.
It smelled like mildew and sweat
There was a large wooden cross on the wall behind me,
I felt the weight of it
Larry’s heavy hand on my shoulder, smiling
Asking me the formal questions
I answered eagerly, obediently, too quickly
As good little girls do
Yes, yes, yes
And now, upon your profession of faith
And the authority placed in me by Christ Jesus
I baptize you
(In the name of the Father)
I thrill to these words, awestruck
As if I received a benediction from God himself
I pull air quickly into my lungs
His hands are on my head, pushing me down
Into the water
Purifying me
Blessing me.
Under the surface, a strange dark silence
(And of the Son)
His words sound muffled, far away, detached
My hair floats around my face like seaweed
While he holds me there
In that moment I feel I am being murdered
But in a sense, I am.
I am dying to my wickedness
Soon to be resurrected a new creature
A lamb of god.
I am flooded with hope, anticipating.
Now his hands pull me, draw me up to the living,
(And of the Holy Spirit)
Saving me.
I break the surface, draw air
He sweeps the hair from my face
I stand chest deep and the water streams down
Washing me clean of all my sins
Listening, straining to sense my new heart beating
Looking for any sign of glorious differentness
As you do on the morning of your birthday when asked if you feel older.
But I perceive nothing different.
Dismay, then a paralyzing fear.
Was it enough?
My lack of differentness stands like an accuser.
The baptistry becomes my personal lake of fire
Myself, a fraud
7 years old.
A smattering of applause from the spectators
Rejoicing
Welcoming this lost lamb into the fold.
Larry’s broad smile,
His hand on my shoulder, heavier than before.
Let us pray.
