You come to me, running

with tears in your eyes

and your arms longing

to embrace me

my hands, shaking

drenched in blood,

touch you for

the first time

your warmth, your light

has reached the darkness

of my heart

and I can feel it stretching

its muscles, its blood

flowing, its voice

preparing to sing

how wonderful it is

to love and to greet it

as it settles in your soul

"Obra Mai Fu"

George Frideric Handel

Gentle Lord Jesus,

have mercy on the villains,

the necessary evil,

for though his hands are bloody

his trail littered with dead men

his heart aches for beauty

for the flowers that grow

only in Your garden

and for the warmth of love

only You can allow him

Lacrimosa

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

a Valentines meal

for my dearest M

let’s forget about the fancy tables for now

the candlelight, the flowers, even the stars

let us make our way instead to the place

we have saved for each other on the table

shoulders touching, ready to feast on this

lovely Valentines spread

we have prepared for ourselves

 

for apéritif: our tannic isolation from

the world, COVID-19—

hard to swallow, a strong and tactile

dryness that stays in your mouth

and won’t go away

            burns your throat

            takes your breath

            overpowers your senses

an unsettling prelude

 

 

for our main course, a warm and familiar

togetherness—tender, flavorful, seasoned

with time and laughter and dreams of the future

we take our time to marinate our days with memories

(dancing in the kitchen in yesterday’s clothes

walking the dog as the sun sets or when it rains

pillow talks and overtimes and the smell of mornings)

            before searing off the grease of discontent

            then we will take out our dainty plates and savor this

                        home we have built around each other

 

and finally, after all this, let us make room for dessert:

                        an unassuming love frosted with strawberry dreams

                        and dusted with sweet whispers into the night

                        it should be enough to last us through this pandemic

                        but we can put it in the freezer and take it out

                        every time this Valentine hunger lurches up

                                    again from our bellies

 

 

so, my darling, let us hold hands and pray to God to bless our meal

that He keep it fresh every day and forever, never to spoil or lose its flavor

for tonight in this table where you and I are the only guests

we will partake and be full

For years, I had endured the kind of suffering only reserved for the grandest of fools, those who believe they were fighting for something true. And I fought hard to hold on, even as the water kept rising, and I kept suffocating—because it was true, or I believed it was. Now I know I had been an idiot, a blind one, an earnestly blind idiot.
And so I died. God, how I died. How it hurt. How I drowned every day for weeks on end in my shame, my guilt, in the unbearable agony of knowing I had caused someone unimaginable, undeserved pain. This is my greatest regret, and the scar it has left in my heart I will carry forever to remind me how I was weak and stubborn—but also as a reminder of how I was forgiven. I can no longer hope for the forgiveness of man, but Christ has looked at me with mercy and offered me another chance.
It is unfathomable that I could live again after all that ugliness, yet here I am. I can only return his mercy, the grace that scum like me don’t deserve, by living every day with gratitude. And so I am. My heart is bursting with thanks that he has calmed the storm and invited me to walk with him gain. I had carried my cross to my "death," and I have learned the lesson that this tragedy wishes to teach me.

I'm trying to remember how I met you in my dream and what we were talking about on the floor. Or where we were and who was driving the car where we were holding hands.

I don't know your name. But you look like you could be a Luke, or a James, or maybe even a Steve.

Not all that glitters is gold

I dreamed of you last night.

Sometimes I remember when we used to hang out in nightclubs, when we left everything behind on our beds, along with the last couple of wardrobe changes we threw on the sheets and whatever books we had been studying earlier that night. I'd put on makeup with what little I know about it and try to convince myself that I look pretty in a short black dress, although my bulging limbs and my post-teenage acne scars were probably screaming their objection.

I remember when you danced with me, your breath reeking of beer but your neck smelling like pine trees. The music pulsated loudly in our ears, threatening to pop our eardrums, but I could only hear the primal cry of my heart, Now! Now! Now!

When we were in high school, everybody thought we would be together eventually. I thought so too, but time has a way of being disagreeable and cruel, and though I faced you with my heart in my hands, eager to offer you all its affection, you simply embraced me and told me we were just friends. My tears tasted bitter in my mouth, but what did I know about love? I was fifteen and stupid.

But then we grew up, and you called me out of the blue, saying you just got home and you wanted to "catch up" on old times. We hadn't seen each other for three years. I had lost weight, my acne had exhausted its term on my skin, and for the first time in my life, I didn't have to convince myself I was pretty—because, finally, I was.

When we met again, we weren't the same. Gone was the golden boy who made everybody laugh and who had so much vigor and passion that our friends made you the envy and trophy of our circle. You had lost your luster, and mine was only beginning to shine. You tried looking to reclaim your glory in others, but I was sick of the pulsating music, sick of the sweaty bodies and the smell of fuck and alcohol, sick of the shallow epicurean delights afforded by your lifestyle that has left me empty and hungover and miserable the morning after. I had outgrown you. I had outgrown the world. 

So I went back to my books and read with the kind of vivacity that I remember having when I was eleven, when the library was my wonderland, when the only friends I had were plain princesses, parading animals, and morbidly martyred saints. It was the best version of myself, the one I had lost to cynicsm and pride and envy. But I am slowly becoming kind to myself again, and I have rediscovered the love I had for the church, for whom I had once thought of becoming an eternal servant.

I still think about it. Whenever I see nuns or priests, I still feel a burning urge to run to their arms and cry unrestrainedly, to beg them to take me with them, to save me from this gradually declining world and give me the peace of the Divine. Maybe I should've gone ahead and filled that application to join the Capuchins that  I mysteriously found on one of my books. I wonder where I would be now if I did become a nun (perhaps it's not too late). The thought is somehow funny and always makes me smile, but now I'm almost certain my life isn't destined for the convent. Wherever that might be, I can only be grateful for where I am now and keep living.

Today I prayed to God to let me give up. My heart is so drained and screaming that it wants to expire.

I have no more left to give, no more fight in me.

It makes me sad that the people who remind me that this city, which I have grown to despise with a passion, is still beautiful are strangers. And you, who have promised to help me, who are supposed to be  a friend, only hurt me.

And now you have threatened to become a stranger, an empty thing with no life or laughter.

You have grown old in your heart, someone I don't care to know.

So really, what else is there? There is no poetry, no joy, no sign of Destiny. Just cruel words and mind games and stubborn people who have stopped at their wounds and cocooned themselves around it, watching it fester instead of opening up to be healed.

This is not the life I want to live, not the person I want to be or want to be with.

Today I am giving up.

I must have smoked more cigarettes today than I had in two months. The Hail Marys have come and gone from my lips, but still my heart feels like a mass of filth and ruin, screaming with the violence of a tempest that picks up more strength as it moves viciously over the dark waves.

It was my birthday yesterday, and already I've hidden in more than one cubicle to cry out the tears stuck in my throat. Every day brings more agony than the last, and the more I kneel in front of the Crucifix, the deeper it cuts. Where is the rest you promised? Where is the joy that makes all of this worth it? Why did you bring me here only to put me through this storm? Why don't you save me? Why don't you save us?

Christ, where are you?