catholic love

we lie on our bed and stare out at the terns diving into

the depths, rising with beaks flashing silver in the sunlight

birds feeding for our amusement, fish dying for our amusement

we hear the crows laugh and the bed shakes and the empty wine glasses rattle

i open my mouth to you and swallow the sea

you are my childhood sin, the priest i lied to, the nuns i defied

you in your white dress and holy communion smile

ten years on and two hundred miles before i would find you

seven years old and the age of reason swallowed us up like a bible plague

how to corrupt what the young believe in and coin it into a power base

cover the world with true religion, fill a young heart with guilt and shame

stuff a young throat with catechism and light the fuse with grief and rage

lock me up in a dark confessional, talking to a priest through a metal cage

why do you have to know so much about me, why do i have to believe your lies

why did you put this beast inside me, do you think you’re safe

two hundred miles away is the big city

only two hundred miles away and i can be free

two hundred million people in this big country

and nobody knows me, nobody knows, nobody hears

the melodies bubbling up between my ears

plato and socrates, heffner and jack the ripper

over the mountains and across the river

out of the desert and into the trees. are you running with me jesus

you and your nuns and priests, you and your sin and sacrifice

you and your twisted love, you and your everything i don’t believe in

but can’t get free of. i am a prisoner in my own heart.

then everything stopped

i was staring at a girl with dark hair and green eyes, and she was staring at me

staring into me, and the secrets and lies, the dreams and ambition, both of us

could see them. we shivered in the cold morning light with the shock of recognition

who are you?

how do you know me?

and if you know me

how can you love me?

and i ran. i was afraid of you, of the way you knew me, the you in me/me in you

we were too close, too soon, too young, and i was too dumb to know what i was losing

i crossed mountains and rivers, oceans and continents

i played music in a thousand cities, i sang on the street for nickels and dimes

too late, your children, too late, your husband, too late, the lost time like an angry river

and i come sailing back to you, your demon lover, your love like a wound

i sink down into the stigmata of your lips. what else but evil could be such bliss

yet oh what a miracle is the ocean of your eyes, your hot wet skin, your tangled limbs

your storm tossed cries, and i am the sailor of a million lost ships, drowning

drowning in your kiss

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