You can read this as a poem or a diary entry; a memory or a lie; a confession or an obfuscation; fiction or non-fiction. I am relinquishing all control.
I only feel safe within the boundaries of my own flesh, and so I’ve made a life-long devotion to my own salvation. No one else will protect you. They whisper. I don’t remember it, I only remember that dream, that stained glass window, that lightning bolt. The premonition lies heavy. So I hold myself, claws coiled 'round arms, crossed. Rigid, I emit, an aura not of innocence but of ice. I am thinking of that boy Damien for some reason. I am thinking of my own omens, they haunt. I am thinking of that knife blade flying through the air again. I wish I could tell you what I mean… But you are. I am telling you exactly what I mean. I don’t know which stories are stories, and which stories are real. I say it over again-- I will never find the boundary line. No matter. I only want to write it down. Meaning is inference, not implication. I want to tell you that there is truth in all of my stories, but none of my stories are True. Maybe that is why it’s so hard for me to connect: because I care too much about truth but haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe that is why it’s so hard for me to write: because I care too much about whether you think it’s true or not. I don’t mean to scare you— Of course you do. I don’t mean to be esoteric— Of course you do. I want to tell you about the stained glass window and the lightning bolt. I’ve tried before. You might find it if you look. This is not a metaphor, the rainbow glass and the electric air. I mean the colored glass “used to make windows so that the light would shine through—”. I mean “the glowing gas particles called plasma.” The light really did shine through, and it glowed like a halo around your crown-- He wasn’t Jesus Christ, stop kneeling! I want to tell you about the premonition, the intangible, the unutterable. But I can only live it. This is it though, right? These words. Every word. This is what I was protecting, the ruin from which I sought deliverance-- Let it go. There is so much more in my mind than you could possibly know and it hurts. There was no Crucifixion, no mark of disgrace. Just my arms crossed over my chest as I held myself in place.
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