hymn/him

i had a body,

in another life.

i floated upwards in a cloud of morphine

as

he fell;

his hair danced downwards

like a dying leaf;

his skin flaked away,

crisp & white as snow;

his bones were hollowed,

knuckles thrown down like dice;

his arms were torn off

& became the branches of a great dark tree

a forest that shrouded him

in mist & the pain of the mystic

& above & below, there was void.

& then,

within the self-less void

there was a song.

the shattered fragments of bone began to shuffle

the ears to wiggle

the eyes to open

the lips to quiver

the whole body to dance itself

back into being -

watching from high above,

i begin to cry,

& the tears are rain,

memories,

all the people & plans & dreams i’ve been

[10 years old, perched on the edge of the world]

[the manic shamanic]

[stood on a ledge, i heard the cry of jungle birds]

[the love junkie]

[while they took my blood under fluorescent lights]

[the slug suckler]

all falling like rain,

spit & spat across the corrugated rooftops of sierra leone

flooding the barren earth

bursting the banks of a broken body

as the howl of the wind

inflates the lungs

& the cry of the bird

becomes the song of the heart

& the rhythm of rain

becomes the beating of veins

& hymn becomes him

& he becomes whole

& i have another body,

& another life.