Marquesa Corpus (excerpts) of Too Close to Heaven

The following are several selections (actually only three, but "Whores" has several parts) from a large body of work I wrote between the summer of '96 and @autumn"99. They are examples of what may or may not be False Memory Syndrome. These are "recovered" memories, memories I had no idea of until they appeared when I was 38 years old. My case does not fit the typical False Memory Syndrome model. I started "remembering" these things long before I ever went into therapy where child abuse was a topic. Victims of False Memory Syndrome are generally led into their corpus of "memories" by a well meaning but zealous therapist. I had symptoms of child abuse, "body memories" unexplainable rectal and chest pain since childhood. I was available, in my large family I was often lost and unsupervised during my preteen years. In the summer, I would eat breakfast early in the morning, play in the fields and barns of the countryside or ride my bike into town (A small western town, 2500 people) and wander around all day. I would eat candy bought with change I swiped from my Mom's stash of tips (she worked as a waitress and/or cook for much of her life) I would appear at supper time, always the last one to the table, but for some reason my chair was in the corner so I would have to climb under through the legs of everyone else and pop into my seat. Little or no conversation. Repeat. I would be ravenous. All leftovers were simply put in my reach and I would dispose of them. In '98, when I was doing research on SRA, I found that my state had enacted a little known law specifically banning acts identical to or very similar to the content of my "memories" precisely at the time these events were supposedly occurring. I might possibly have picked this up somehow as a child, but we had no TV , I did not read the paper or listen to the radio. My family, in their silence on the subject, flatly denies any possibility of these events occurring. I'm am not saying these stories are true, I am just saying it is what I remember. I feel certain I was the victim of some kind of violent, transgender sexual abuse but I am unsure of any details. Most of these "memories" are of SRA, Satanic Ritual Abuse, often the content of False Memory Syndrome. I refer you to the work of Elizabeth Loftus, who has made a career of debunking SRA and virtually coined the term False Memory Syndrome.

Suzzane

I met Suzzane when I was four and a half.
After Pastor Greg sexed me
he left me in the room.
She came in and held me to her chest.
She had little tiny boobs for a big woman.
She was pretty and plump and smelled perfect
and looked perfect and smiled at me so beautiful,
I felt better.
She never sexed me.
She would just hold me and talk to me and tell me it wasn’t my fault.
She said if I could just hold on I could have a good life.
She said she was just like me once,
all alone and scared.
She just held on tight and didn’t ever give up
and now she had a wonderful life, almost.
Well, at least she was alive and had lots of nice things.
Hold on, Mark, hold on to whatever you know is true
and good and right.
They want you to hate yourself,
to hate God.
Don’t let them change you that much.
They can do whatever they want to your body
but they can’t touch your heart if you don’t let them.
What do you believe is true, Mark?
Jesus loves me.
Alright then. You hang on tight to that every second.
Don’t ever let go of it,
no matter what happens to you, OK?
Every time they did me that year
she would be there afterwards and hold me
and tell me to hang on to my truth.
Whats your truth, Mark?
Jesus loves me.
Alright then, hang on, Honey, hang on.
She taught me all about girls clothes.
How fun they were,
how soft and silky and cool.
How they had their own little world I could hide in
when it all got to be too much.
One day they took me out in the country,
to a big barn out in the sun,
tied me up to a rock
where there were lots of dead birds and horses and sheep.
She came out in a white dress,
her head was down and she was crying a little.
She looked up and put her hair back from her face
and asked me,
What’s true, Mark?
I couldn’t talk, I just nodded my head.
They killed her,
on top of me like the others,
cut off her little breasts and her little weiner
and put them on me.
She bled and got cold and they sang
and I floated
like the other times.
Only she was the first.
They cut her into little pieces,
put her in wooden boxes,
and carried us to a truck.
We went a long ways.
It was really bumpy and loud and slow.
Don yelled that he liked it better when they did it on horses.
We went down a long bumpy hill until I could hear the river.
They took us out and we went down some steps.
They stopped and put rocks in the boxes.
We went out a ways in a boat
and they threw her over and dropped me into the water
on the end of a rope
that was tied to her.
The rope broke and they pulled me in.
I knew it, Greg said.
He’s the one.

When I dress up I take her name.
She was so good to me.
She saved my life
with what she taught me.
They tried to make me just like them.
Instead I stayed mostly like me
and a lot like her.
My truth became so much a part of me
I didn’t even know it was there,
I just knew it clear through to my soul
and the bones of my soul.
She was right,
as long as I held on to it they couldn’t touch me, not really.

Pastor Greg told me that if I just loved him and cooperated all the time,
the Cadre would take care of me for the rest of my life.
I could have all of the clothes I wanted and jewelry and toys.
I just had to stick with them and they’d see to it I always had nice things
and plenty to eat.
Two or three times a week I would stay
after bible school or come by after school
and we would play his games.
Sometimes there would be lots of people there
and they would all play a little.
I think I was the only little girl at these partys.
Sometimes he would be drunk and we would play
and then he would knock me down and spit on me.
I would want to go to my room and put on my pretty clothes and pretend
Suzzanne was still there.
He would laugh and yell and pee on me as I crawled across the floor.
I would remember what she said, though.
I don’t remember much about how I felt
when all this stuff happened.
I just know I cried a lot when no one was around
and I always felt like I was just watching everything from a long ways away.
After Suzzanne I always felt lonely
and sad.
Always.

Whores



Maria

She was my lover from the first moment I saw her.
A whore like me.
She wore white and lace.
A pretty white dress in the sun on the lawn by a tree.
Her skin a light olive and her eyes
were large dark ovals rimmed in black.
And her hair the shiniest, blackest black.
It fell just short of her shoulders, shimmering.
We were singing and I sang loud.
She joked the way her people do,
“Were you singing John,
I couldn’t hear because Mark sang so loud?”
She came to me later.
She touched her finger to my lips
and said come to me little boy,
I’ll be waiting.
She was Amy’s sister, she said.
Come to me.
I stood there in the back yard of her house
two hours later.
I tryed to stay away
but the call of the whore was too strong.
I stood there waiting,
knowing she was nearby.
She rose up out of her garden to my left and behind me.
Dressed in white again,
her blouse smudged with dirt,
her breasts older, more ample than Amy,
but with the same call.
She said nothing I could hear but moved toward me,
hands still gloved,
dirt smudged on her face,
legs and arms.
Her eyes never left me as she pulled of her gloves.
I backed up onto the steps and into the back porch.
Without a word she stripped me bare and I tasted the garden dirt
on her skin and felt it grind into my back.
Every day at three o clock for the rest of the summer.
Often on the porch, sometimes in her room,
always a bath after.
Until her husband came home one day and caught us.
He nearly killed her.
Me he just beat with his belt and stared at.
He was trying to understand.
Then she said,”He is the priest of Jude, the special one”
He unfolded his arms and cried out ,
“Praise the master, he has come to me!”
I was evil, he said and nothing but evil will come of this.
He was right.
He was glad.
He was leader of the cadre.
Six months later she was dead.



Me
I was a whore.
I was a female whore.
I had a voluptuous body and long dark hair.
I did not imagine this.
It was as true for me as the air I breathed.
I had all the sensations, emotions, and experiences of a whore.
I was six years old and a thousand year old whore at the same time.
I was to have been sacrificed at the equinox that year.
Maria died instead.
I killed her.
I made her cut her own throat and die.
I lay there under her
Choking on her blood.
And I loved her so much
I wanted it to be me.
But I had to live so I could tell the story.
She chose this way.
Someday people would hear me.
They would never have believed her.



The Sons Of judas
My brother Dan was intended to be their sacrifice.
They knew him from Amy’s talk of my “sexy little brother”
He was four.
They wanted an innocent.
I was not.
They came for him one afternoon
when Amy was in bed with me.
They walked by our room and the heat and the dirt and the dark of them
woke me up.
He was sleeping in the next room and I got up.
They gathered around him in their dark clothes and flashed their eyes down at him,
they reached for him and I shouted “Stop!”
I told them they could have me instead.
Take me, I’m all you need.
They needed a boy right away,
“One dirty little trailer house urchin is as good as the next”
They grabbed me by my arm and shot a needle in it.
They took my knife
and stuffed it inside my pants.
In front of my penis.
They drove me to a barn on the south end.
They told me I was the One.
I said “Go to hell”
Gregory said, “Thank you”
and hit me in the back of my head.
They put a robe of black clothe on me.
Then they dragged me to the alter.
After much shit-smearing and gutteral chanting
in my direction they tied me to their cross.
The whore was alive in me now
and she loved me.
She was braver than me and she stood up to them.
She took me in her body and held me quietly through the horror of the sacrfices.
Animals of all kinds til the floor was slick with blood.
The whore whispered in my ear.
“I have seen it a thousand times.
This time will be different.
We shall live.”
She said.
“You will free me
And I will save you”
When it came to my murder,
they raised me on their cross
at the end of their bloody alter
and chanted out love of evil.
Maria came out from their midst,
Naked but for a blakstrap around
her shoulders,neck, waist and crotch,
carrying a bloody sword by her side.
She quickly and quietly mounted the alter
and tore open their robe and pulled off my pants.
My knife clattered to the alter.
She laughed and picked it up with her other hand.
She turned and gave the sword to the Second,
took my knife and carefully circumcised me.
My hood she took and chewed for a moment
then cried out like some kind of wild dog
and placed my little penis in her mouth.
And sucked my blood til I got dizzy.
She took the knife and cut her breasts
so they dripped blood from the nipples.
Slowly and carefully they lowered me to the alter.
The Second who stood behind her gave her
the jewels of the Cadre
and she placed them on my chest.
“You shall be the whore of the temple
of Jude and Prince of the Cadre,”
she said.
The cadre grew tense and she raised my knife.
The Whore raised up from the slab through Maria’s
dripping blood.
She reached out to Maria and touched her lips and said,
“You are mine.
Awaken the true love you have for this child.”
Maria smiled her big beautiful smile
and swung the knife in a wide arc
around and around and down
toward me and up above her head.
She whispered to me
“For the love of God”
With both hands she struck a blow
that missed me by the width of my hair.
Her face was close to me now.
I said,”You can kill me if you want,
its OK. She reached for the knife,
pulled it out of the wood,
smiling the old Maria smile from before.
She turned around and yelled something at the guy
who still stood behind her with her sword.
She stood up and looked toward him
and stood there staring at him.
She yelled again and he swung.
Her head bounced off my chest
and fell to the floor on my left.
Her headless body jerked and sqirted blood
then slowly and softly slumped on top of me.
I just lay there beneath her,
not sobbing but
tears running red down my face.
The cadre fell silent for what seemed like hours.
They suddenly began chanting as one
They were both ecstatic and fearful.
They said I would be their Prince.
The whore stood up and told them I would be their ruin.
They wouldn’t look at me but couldn’t leave me alone.
They all touched me and ate her drying blood.
I remember the whore kissed me and softly
placed her hand on my cheek.
“I love you little boy child”
She said.
And entered into my heart.
And the other one came.
The pretty blonde one.
Not Amy but Grace.
She’s not a whore.
She’s an angel.
I like her a lot.
She lets me be.
And when they come to me
she carries me up into the sky
and we sing and play and dance.
They cannot touch me.
The whore is below
and I am above,
dancing with an angel.

Day and night
I have dreams.
And in these dreams
they are now the ones who pray I will wake up.

And I am their ruin still.
I live.
I scatter them night and day by living a decent life.
I am the only one who can defeat me.
And God knows I have tried.
But I’m worn out from that paticular battle and won’t be at it any more.
I’ve turned to loving each and every one,
something I’ve done all along
but now I know it
and it makes it, Oh, so much better.


It seems I’m not as brave as I think
I still don’t like going to bed.
I’m not even so smart,
I can’t figure out my own wife.
I can’t fix anybody
but maybe I can help.

I love the whore.
Marquesa Martinez.
It seems the whore leaves my body sometimes
and resides in my mind.
She works with me now.
The two of us,
we have a strong influence on people and places.
But certain ones seem to be beyond us
and that is a saving grace.
I sometimes fear that I’m missing Jesus.
But he is the lake and I am a minnow.
He tells me he makes himself too subtle to sense
because I had been through so much in his name.
They had made me be him for them
so now he would gently be everything for me.
He so thoroughly imbues me
surrounds me
and supports me that I cannot sense him
unless I should somehow step outside of him
and real life strikes me again.
And so I will be still as I can
and walk,
not knowing where the next step may fall.

Woman

Sometimes
I feel like a woman even now,
now that its all behind me.
but I’m not, I know,
The spirit that made me a woman
is mine now,
she gave herself up freely for me, remember.
I wear the clothes and create the illusion to satisfy the great loss.
A very real person, a part of me,
is gone now.
I miss her terribly.
She saved me from satan and Sandy and myself,
and then she gave up her life.
She gave her Yaqui spirit
to the one Jesus Christ.
For my sake.
She did not completely understand.
She did not need to,
she knew it was right.
She still dwells in my heart
but does not speak
nor will she ever come forward
to take me away again.
I may not ever be whole.

Thank you, woman.
I love you.


As I said, there is a large body of such work on my computer, available at request. I have been experiencing rectal pain from the time I sat down to write.

Just for Today, No Small Gods

Just for today I will live consciously aware of God in the moment, each moment, by living each moment in the present time and place and situation.

Living in an abusive climate for so long, thirteen years in fact, and seventeen more in my mind has taught me to escape the moment, the present. I no longer need to do so. Led astray by misplaced devotion and a massively overblown sense of responsibility; my momentary madnesses have damaged me. They flung me against the gates of a false heaven, again and again, leaving me in a shattered heap, thinking I had come too close to God. The one, true God, gently, slowly, lifted me, carried me, reassembled me. He let me know, somehow, that He had been with me always, closer than my own skin. He was that quiet place that my mind swirled around, always there but overlooked in my superhuman efforts to save the souls of my Sirens (first wife, my middle age mistress, and nearly every woman I ever “knew”). He asked me to devote myself to Him, I had o’erstepped my bounds. He would deal with them. “What about my second wife, the Innocent?” I asked. She is bulletproof now, as you know, He said, and not quite so innocent as you think. You tried to rescue her, too, and she let you, though she knew very well she needed no rescuing, then she let you down. “I hurt her.” Yes, and you have paid your penance three times over. I forgave you years ago.

God lives in the eternal now, and I will try to do so, so as not to feel separated from him, though "He is not far from any of us." In truth, He dwells within us all and about us all, Father, Son, and Spirit, holy and mysterious Trinity, always and everywhere, infinite and intimate.


“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Show me the Way, Lord Jesus, for you are The Way.
Teach me the Truth, Lord Jesus, for are The Truth.
Grant me your very self, Lord Jesus, for you are The Life.

Christ “is in all and is all.” The center of time and space and life, the Father’s creative Word, made flesh. He lived in a normal human body, “Like us in all things save sin,” yet still God, thereby sanctifying, spiritualizing humanity. This body dwelt on the earth, in creation, was buried in the earth, thereby sanctifying, spiritualizing the earth and all creation. He rose from the dead, His humanity risen and divinified and His divinity humanized. There is none other who has done so, He is the one and only God, second person of the Trinity. The center of creation, He accepts all who accept Him, His Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. All those who know the way, the truth and the life come to the Father. Who on earth can define the limits of Christ, contain the Spirit, know the depths of the Father? All humanity is “made in the image and likeness of God.” Can anyone truly say who Christ accepts and who He rejects? Such distinctions are for earthly institutions to debate, man-made factions with small gods. Christ, risen humanity, human divinity, has been “lifted up” and “will draw all people to” Himself, and through Himself to the Father, to perfect, eternal, love, peace, joy…

Father, Son, Spirit, grant that I may always and everywhere choose You, to follow You, to listen to You, to rely on You, to be in You. Keep me, Lord, from other places, small gods, other things. May I forever live in your will.

Father, please grant me to know your will, I beg of you, let me know your will, for I have no will of my own that I can trust.

“Let it be done to me according to your word.”

Boy

His every movement is tender joy
his every sound light and new
his entire body is round,soft love.

The little boy was here again today
with his jelly toast face and big blue eyes
and curly little blond head.
He stood at the end of the hallway,
his eighteen-month-old body bent slightly at the waist
and turned towards me with a ten-toothed grin
that crinkled up those incredibly open eyes.
His little arm came up, the forearm verticle,
his perfect little hand waving a profile of a wave,
only the flawless miniature fingers moving.
Quietly he turns away, still grinning.
He walks, then trots on his sturdy, little perfect legs,
tottering a little but oh, so confident,
to his oh, so pregnant mom down the hall.
He grins up at her, his magic key to the world.
She sighs, immune to his charm in her state,
ands turns back to the laundry.
He helps her, of course,
until she looks at him and sighs out his name.
He turns with a giggle and trots back down the hall.
Head up, arms flying, knees pumping,
‘til he rumbles to a stop in front of my spot on the couch.
He pauses for a moment, assessing the situation.
The perfect little arm comes up again into wave position
and his fingers move, deliberately, individually, up and down,
the smile lights up and he’s off again, silently.
He disappears ‘round the rocking chair and into the kitchen.
I listen carefully for a few moments then call out his name.
Soon I see the little blonde head
moving slowly ‘round the rocking chair.
His steps are small, casual, but searching for intent,
ready to go in any interesting direction.
His eyes search the room,
calm but filled with anticipation
of finding something fun to do.
He spots his coat lying on the rocker ottoman.
The eyes light up a little and he grabs it,
purposefully with both hands,
turns carefully and trotts away.
I hear the loud little footsteps
cross the kitchen floor then stop.
I imagine him carefully feeling with his foot
the little step up from linoleum to dining room carpet
where he tripped and fell many weeks ago
when he was not so very accomplished at walking.
I waited for a minute or two, I knew what he was doing,
our outside boy.
I got up and walked across the living room floor,
around the rocker to where I could see him,
standing there with his coat in one hand,
dragging the floor, and his other hand
pressed to the edge of the door
where it opens upto the outside world.
“Going outside by yourself there, Boy?”
He turns, grins, then turns serious
as he quickly raises his arm in an arc just above his shoulder,
one of those fingers extended, pointing at the door, at the outside.
“Unk!” He says emphatically and quickly drops his arm.
“Unk”is his only word.
It usually means “doggie”
but sometimes means “outside where the doggie lives”
The “unk” barks on cue
and the boy again points, “Unk!!”
He grabs his coat with both hands
and brings it up over his head,
as far as his short-armed,
little boy torso would allow,
and pulled it down across his head and shoulders,
poking one arm in the air as he did so.
He looked down at it a little puzzled.
“Need a little help there Buddy?”
I took his coat from him, turned it ‘round,
and held it out so he could get into it.
He turned and shuffled sideways
in tiny little careful steps with his arm held out,
staring intently at the arm hole.
I move the coat just a little
and pulled it on.
He turned his head to try and look over his shoulder
as his arm curled back and those fingers moved
in the direction of the other arm.
With just a little help the coat was on
and our out side boy turned once again toward the door
but not before he flashed a big, excited grin.
I could see those loose blonde curls
on the back of his perfectly shaped head.
“So, you want to go outside Andrew?”
He turned his face toward me,
very serious, and then back to the door
with his hand pressing at the edge,
the little fingers working,
his tiny fingernails scratching the surface.
I repeated my question and waited.
He stubbornly, quietly persisted.
The dog barked.
“Unk!!!”
Those incredible eyes sparkled upon me,
Entranced, I opened the door.

Phil. 4:4-8

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! (Yes, rejoice in good times and bad for all things must pass but the Lord remains and He is nearer than your very skin as He dwells within you if you but open your heart. In deepest darkest night, when despair is clutching you, remember this will pass for the Word Made Flesh is incarnate in you and somewhere the sun shines bright and it will soon shine on you. God is with us! God is for us! God loves us!) 5 Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. ("Though He is not far from any of us") 6 Have no anxiety at all ("Be not afraid", "do not worry", the most oft repeated theme of the Bible and one of the cornerstones of Jesus' teachings, God is with us, there is nothing we need fear) but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God (trust completely in Him). 7 Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Peace, divine peace, peace beyond all logic, reason, peace when it cannot be understood how one can be peaceful) 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Think of good friends, kind hearts, noble deeds, autumn sunsets, rainbows, any beloved person place or thing, and think of Jesus Christ. "The word was made flesh and made his dwelling among us" God incarnate is present to us, all things, all people, all creation is infused with the living Son of God and with His Spirit that He has sent to us. Contemplate any good in all creation and you contemplate God. To be alive is good, even in the darkest despair it is an honor to live, to be in the likeness of God. And as sure as the sun has set, it will rise again, so hold on during the dark night, for somewhere hearts are joyous and somewhere, someone is thinking of you.)

John 6 44-59

JN 44-59


Jesus said to the crowds:
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
“They shall all be taught by God.”
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the
synagogue in Capernaum.


The Father has given his Son everything.
And He has given his Son to us.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
Perfect man and perfect God, He brought the kingdom of God to earth, showed and taught man how to live. how to love, showed man the truth about God.
We rejected him because sin had power over us, though we thought we were in power. He came to announce power means nothing, money means nothing, all our knowledge comes to nothing, love means everything and little children are the wisest of us all.
We killed him to hold on to our power, sin killed him, as was God’s plan. Christ received all sin, drew all the power of sin to himself, and died, taking sin with him into death.
God bled, His blood was poured out into the world; forever sanctifying it, His flesh was sealed in the tomb, in the earth, dead. Totally given over to the power of sin and death and men and the world.
But he rose out of the earth by the power of the Godhead. A new Creation, risen Flesh and Blood, risen Word.
“On the night he was betrayed (Catholic liturgy)” and in the synagogue at Capernaum He commanded us to eat his flesh, his body and drink his blood in remembrance, to make ever present the reality of his sacrifice, and we read his Word, we read Him also to make him ever present. To feed us, our hearts, minds souls, spirits and our blessed bodies as well.
He rose to become divinity and risen humanity in one, sanctifying us and all creation, taking away sin, we need only let it go, love Him and we will be like him one day, risen humanity.
He is God personified, incarnated, and man divinified,, risen from the dead and immortal.
He is ALL. All mankind, all creation, all knowledge and all the Father is in Christ. “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
And Christ is the Father’s gift to us, for us, in us,
The perfect gift from the Father, the full revelation and presentation of the Godhead, and the full recreation of humanity, through the risen humanity and personified divinity of Christ, mankind has, by loving Christ, complete and utter communion with God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, though we see as in a glass darkly now, “What we will be is not known, only that we will be like Him.(1John)”
“The bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” The world. Not just Christians or believers or men; the world, all creation, all life is recreated by the incarnation of Christ. The central point of all time, all space, all creation, is Christ Jesus our Lord, All those made in the image of God are beckoned by the Father to come to Christ.
Yes, that would be you, every last one of you. Let no one exclude you. The Father draws everyone to the Son, in many and various ways, for He is God and nothing is impossible for Him, his ways are not our ways and no one, no denomination, church, religion, culture, nation can contain all the ways of God. No matter what you conceive God to be, He is greater, more loving, more powerful than you believe. It is called infinite.

They thought him mad. They said he had a demon, same thing.
All the war and persecution and hypocricy and games of power and manipulation and murder and greed and every evil thing done in his name, this is madness. The man/God who taught radical love and radical peace and loved children so much, He forgives, but he weeps.

Latchbolt

Latch Bolt

I’ve never been able,
try as I might,
to give myself completely
to anything
or anyone.
As though I was not all there
to give.
Perhaps I have left part of myself behind
in a box on a shelf
or by the side of a road
or locked in a small room
somewhere
with the latch bolt
on the other side of the door,
too high for me to reach,
even if I
was on the other side.
Too.

I just turned seven and
I’m really scared.
He strode in smiling,
his head jutting forward
and his hand on his belt.
I hear the latch bolt.
I cry before he touches me
and I run.
He’s behind me and I’m really scared.
I can go nowhere
but under the bed.
He drags me out and no one hears me.
I cry.
Hands on the bed.
Is what I’m feeling really real?
Am I just pretending to be so scared?
Does it really hurt so much
or am I just bein’ a wimp?
Why am I praying to die?
Is it really that bad?
This hasn’t happened before, has it?
Am I even still here?
What’s happening down there?
I not still crying, am I?
I’m not alone, there’s somebody here
with me.
Somebody I like.
Somebody wonderful
and familiar.
We look down on me and cry a little
then we float out into the evening sky.
I wake up in a different room.
Someone’s shaking me.
I’m clean, and sore
and I walk home

Once Too

Once Too
(Butterfly Fields Two)

Once was a Good man
growing up and out of a boy,
but he was different, silly,
dumb, weird.
(or so he was told).
“That’s not good”, he thought
(or heard),
“I must be like everyone else,
‘else they won’t like me”.
So Good left for Like
and Peace went with him
and left unrest and doubt,
and an empty shell of a boy
who once was Good.

And he says: How do I know what they all really want
or like or need anyway?
How do I please them
when I can’t please myself?
I’m empty inside and I can’t get filled up
by all those people out there.
They have little to give
and even their best doesn’t last
and I end up empty again.
Broken promises and butterflies,
regrets and fears and empty spaces
are all I see inside.

I’ve heard that peace of mind is hard to find
and it doesn’t seem to come
from anywhere I’ve ever looked
or from anyone I’ve known.
I’ve heard it comes from deep inside
but when I look there all I find
are broken promises to myself
and a field of butterflies.