I’m not sure when I handed myself over
Turning myself in
Consenting to holy matrimony
To this
Whatever this is
Without answers to even one of my questions
Like two kids at a midwestern church
Promising each other the world
The way people do when the world is promising back
I thought at the time I was standing up for myself
Carving out a little space where I could still say “no” to everything I was against so that if “yes” ever found me, I’d still be here waiting
I thought I was waiting for answers
I was so scared to not believe in the divine Christ that I padded my so-called skepticism with prayers for forgiveness for needing to know what really happened
To cause a thirty three year old man who never knew his real dad to die for something he believed in that didn’t even have a name
All I knew was that the parts I believed most were the two Mary’s at Calvary, unlawful mother and daughter, weeping until dawn because their love was more real than every law laid down by that bloodied priesthood
Because they knew what I knew, that no one should have to die for the love of god, living god’s love is already hard enough
All I knew was that when I watched the world outside our tiny world through the telescope of my eyes—and god knows I always watched—I didn’t see darkness
I saw people whose eyes I wanted to be brave enough to meet
All I knew was that something in me would die unless I said “no” so quiet and deep that the world stopped its orbit around the sun and I stopped getting older
Because I couldn’t be ok when I wasn’t ok
That was all. A simple matter of facts.
I’d no idea that the truth would ask of me everything except answers
Until she’d drawn out of me every question cradled in the cavity of my chest
I’d no idea that when I turned myself in I’d be turning myself inside out
Until the deepest parts of me travel the long mile from my heart to my face
I couldn’t have imagined that when I signed up to revise my opinions I was signing up to revise myself over and over again until my self fits the shape of a soul I couldn’t have imagined
I thought I was facing reality, when in reality, I was facing my own face, which is all that ever stood between this heart and the world
That to walk that mile I’d have sob the heartache of the people my ancestors drove out of this country, walking, because my people hadn’t learned a language older than taking
That to walk that mile I’d have to say I love you and mean it for the first time, to someone who could never love me back
Because until I’d spilled my heart love like a broken vase, I wouldn’t even recognize its contents
I’d have to look into the eyes of someone who wanted me to get better for no reason other than their own wanting and say “I’ve got nothing” while their compassion undresses me to the center of the center of the center of my shame
Shame so much older than I am that I couldn’t name its heredity except to say that we’ve laid waste the earth trying to expunge a sin that was never even ours
That’s how curses work. That’s how healing works
You turn yourself inside out and stop being anything at all
Because being what this place made you isn’t a thing you can be
So you say “no” when you can’t say yes
It’s not complicated. It’s just lonely for a while
When you give up on guessing what you might become