this is me, not working on my senior project like i should be.

When I walked out the door,
you said,
good luck.
Just remember,
the road to hell is paved
with those good intentions of yours,
so, sir, I will reach your
well paved hell, gladly,
and with singing,
much sooner than meet
whatever appropriate alternative you would have me
pointed towards
and you should know,
a wiser man than you once told me
there is no compass to this,
I spent the first 15 years of my life,
in a school
learning to pray like porcelain
to speak proper and softly
"like a woman should"
to respect the powerful
like they could nail
through my hands
it’s not to say
it didn’t make me who I am
just that it also grew
forest fires between my joints
and I am still burning.
I was brought up by the righteous
the standards,
those guardians of redemption
acting as though beyond earshot of the steeple
the sinners
are lying in ambush
ready to jump,
take by force these castles
of judgments,
but we wayside have no use
for blinded fortresses,
does your holiness burn?
Does it look like steam,
my smoke is not that clean,
it’s too busy
turning me inside out
finding inadequacy beneath each new vein
between fire-fights I remind myself
that your God doesn’t listen
when I sing
but somehow, it’s still my job
to answer
when they ask me if my God has a heart
or a heart of stone
I wish I knew how to sew up
the wrists slit open
by your stained glass
but I’m not a medic,
or a saint,
and words heal like bandages
wrapped around the foot
when it’s the hand that’s been cut off,
when I walked out the door,
you denounced my potential
as something becoming an angel,
less potent,
because I don’t burn with my faith,
like you
but, sir, you’ve tied us at the stake,
walked backwards
away, dredging the path from your toes
with catechisms like gasoline
your God might even
strike the ground to light a fuse,
I wouldn’t know:
because my God is tied to the same splinters
as my ankle
like some three-legged race
and we’re both praying
hard as hell
for blasphemy.
I don’t burn with my faith,
but when the thunderstorms
brew in my stomach
the leaves start roasting up in my throat
trying to get up and out
like the innocent on death row
we wayside,
we have no use for blindness.
We already know
that we can’t walk.
So please, all this business
about the road to heaven
or the road to hell
is doing us no use.
It’s ok if the forest chimney-smoked down,
so long as we find some water,
my throat made itself sandpaper
from all the leaves,
and God,
he’s burning around the edges,
like the compass you gave me
that I am still learning
not to use.