achangingaltar:

A poem I had started writing for Ginandjack’s Agon, but couldn’t manage to finish until after the deadline.

I’m loading it anyways because even though the video is crud, I like the poem.

Praise Dionysus!

——————-

“Each whisper

Every word that I swallow is like a seed from a dark and bitter fruit. 

Each one takes root

in my heart

but these truths I eat don’t sprout beautiful flowers

The grow hooks

each pulling my muscles in different directions.

He comes to me

His fingers slip between my ribs

His fingers rip beneath my ribs

And He digs into this little scatter heart

this little flowerpot of hooks

this graveyard of honesty and unsaid truths.

Like I’ve been running

each muscle catches on bones and I scream out as He dives in.

Ecstasy

The god within.

There is no room for these things I’ve choked down in fear if He is in me

There is no space for these ideas, these arguments, these truths and screams and shouts

if He is in me.

And He is.

And so I have no spaces left inside where I can horde these words and whispers.

No corners where dark shadows devour my rebel yell and hide it so perfectly that even I have lost my voice.

He takes up all the room once given to shame, and withering flowers.

Now I am a garden of rageful snapdragons.

Of honest bleeding hearts.

He lives inside my chest and limbs and head and spine

He lives in my teeth and my tongue

I no longer swallow words.

My mouth is full.

With wine.

Or blood.

Or truth.

He slips beneath my skin and bones and tears me up.

Then, with heartstrings He sews me up

and I know I needn’t worry about hearts, or ribs, or fingers.

I needn’t worry about bruised hearts, or broken ribs, or pointing fingers.

I no longer suck on the seeds of dark and bitter fruit.

I force them down the throats of others.

And He is in me while I do it.”

– Anthos, A Changing Altar