Holy, Only to Ourselves

I no longer believe in revolution. Giddy hope strangled by the eventuality of surrender, like a paper flower disintegrating under the rain. Arms held aloft, kneeling in the mud, awake and temporary, it’s our duty to live another day pressed against the wall. 

Grinning, we fight: late night study sessions, takeout, chopsticks gnawed to splinters. There are moments when I feel rabid, heart full of darkness, wanting nothing but myself, momentary satisfaction, a void-like maw filled with dried marigolds and broken spiderwebs, and little notes saying I’ll be back in an hour, signed I love you. Growing upward, thinning with the never ending atmosphere. 

We call Genghis Khan brutal. The Ancient Mongols left their dead open to the Blue Sky, so vultures could pick them clean of flesh. I suppose there is a brutality to clarity, to wiping civilizations off the earth. Wouldn’t it be lovely to look up and see heaven? 

We humans are meant to be dirty. You can’t scrub out the stench of failed love poems, or corpse laden battlefields, or animal sacrifice, or perfume. Our temples are forever stained and holy only to ourselves.