idolatry

You said, ‘can I show you I love you?’

and I said ‘yes’ but cried, cause I knew

to believe you would cost every protective lie

and to hear you would silence each false lullaby

and to see as you see would blind my sad eyes

to my hoarded-up griefs. Oh my God,

what is left once my temples collapse

and my altars and shrines melt down? Where will I take

the black roosters of sleepless nights, where will I make

sacrifices of blood dark as mornings I wake

with a terrified heart, or the ripest

gold grains and rich fruit of my mind

in its battles to meet failure’s quotas? And how

will I dance without ritual laments, fight without

ceremonial armor and furious shouts,

look the world in its face without mask

or pretense that I’m somehow enough?

What will save me when spells weaken, bonfires yield

midst the blackness, the evil eye sees my concealed

deepest loves and its hands ooze like something congealed

all across my life? And... who will I be

once I give up belonging to Fear?

photocred K. Enterline