ANGELS PROTECT HER NOW

SOMETIMES I SEE FLAMES

THE ANGELS JUST CUT OUT HER TONGUE / CALL HER BLACK MARIA / WOULD I LIE TO YOU? THAT GIRL'S NOT RIGHT IN THE BRAIN!

My "religious trauma" is nothing neat nor tangible. Most of what i have is a brain bled full of holes and a scattered, disconnected memory haze enough that the only questions they beg are: Are you sure you're remembering correctly? Are you sure it happened that way? Maybe everything was fine, and you're the one who misheard. Are you certain you got the details right? Are you sure?

Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

If something happens to you, and no one else is around to witness it, did it ever really happen at all?

THE UNBEARABLE HEAVINESS OF REMEMBERING

MASS CONVULSIONS STRIKE THE CHOIR BY THE GRACE OF GOD!!!!!!

NONE OF THAT MATTERS WHEN GOD HAS PLANS FOR YOU

...

SOMEONE GET ME TO A DOCTOR; SOMEONE GET ME TO A CHURCH!

The stigmata has become particularly interesting to me, or the secular perspective of it has, to be specific. Not a miracle, but something done by the body itself. Self-harm, maybe, but also the notion of a psychosomatic wound. Something so painful, so obsessive, so coveted, that the body bends under the brain's will, and lets its skin rot out and bleed for the privelege of a wound visible for all to see.

A bad sort of miracle. A miraculous sort of decay.

But sometimes I wonder at the religious explanation. God loves you enough to bless you, reach down Its hand from heaven to touch you specifically, and this is what It imparts to you: your skin, splitting, muscles tearing, rotting, dissolving, blood that never quite stops seeping out of the open wound of your body. A blessing of agony: Does It know that you're strong enough to endure it?

Or does it just not give a shit?

...

SAINTS PROTECT HER NOW

...this is how it begins

A LIST OF THINGS AN ANGEL'S VOICE COULD COMPARE TO:

tinnitis static. harsh noise enough to make you dizzy
gerard way's voice, hysterically sobbing out the last verse of Vampires Will Never Hurt You
a bird song, quiet and melodic
the rush of blood in your ears, loud enough to nauseate you
the breatless gasp of something punctured
a taunt
a dare
a question
the sound of a blade splittiing skin
vomit off the pristine porcelain
the muscles of your guts, ever shifting

LET OUR BLOOD IN VAIN; YOU FIND GOD IN PAIN

Here's the problem with Knowing a God who is obsessed with blood and wound and agony:

the urge to cut yourself apart never quite fades

the saints that wanted nothing more than to be martyred, who prayed for it, who begged, who got told stories of decapitations, and flayings, and dismemberment, and torture, and stakes, and smoke, and dying -- what else could they aspire to? i get it. i wish i didn't, but i do

i wonder if they felt like this too: Holiness like an insect in the blood, like a parasite baying to be let out. daydream fantasies of silver metal sharp enough to cut. muscles rent from bone. fat split from skin. blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood and blood, i wonder if their arms ached like mine do. i wonder if they hesitated.

i wonder what their lives might have been if someone had thought to discourage them from speaking too loudly, from picking up the whip, from seeking out the gore

i wonder what mine might have been, if i'd had their someone telling me that it was Just, it was Right, it was Devout, it was GOOD.

I wonder.