I OF THE TORN LEG
The virgin of I.. chained down with dirty, flecking scraps of rope. The wooden walls of the confessional echoed,
the sounds asking me, begging me, your question. My question is one of the whales that swam away from me that night.
Who goes to heaven? I whisper to God. Then, I vomit like a snake uncurling and burying its skin. And he answers through the mouth of the yellow-teethed grinning college girl.
There is no one who is spared from His love. All you need to do is acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
I scratched another shaky line up the metal poles holding the church up underground. My fingernails crack and bleed freely. All I can do is stare.
The next time, the virgin stabbed me through the heart... She came with three guns. One bullet went into my ear, straight through my head. The other through my leg. Then she handed me the pistol.
Somehow, I've wound up under the foundation layer of the church. I can smell the dirtied scratching and the discarded clothing. Senselessly, I shoot (him), and shoot (him), and shoot (Him), and everything falls down as I break through the concrete of my virgin home, the tombstone of my love.
With a bullet as my eye, I ask God, Is this enough sin, now?
Because when I asked before, that bright-eyed young man had told me:
You stealing candy from the store holds the same sinful weight as a murder does, in God's eyes. All sins hold the same judgement. I realized then that no matter what I did, no matter how I am and always will be... my rapist holds no more weight than the abduction of a chocolate bar from the convenience store.
(She used to be me, but she is dead.)
Dismembered, mangled, and defective, that man and I dance away the last teary second of my life. When I don't have limbs anymore, all I can do is repent, my throat leaks sand. I feel dizzy... God never cursed me, I regret, regret, regret. I cursed my aching heart while I was living inside someone else's body.