Oh, Lord, why do you need to live these calamities through me-my addiction to intensity ruins me- You sent them facing me-I did demolish them but harmed myself-internal madness, sadness-the body is a lonely animal-I’m tired-drapery of darkness encases me, forces me eternally to do such horrific deeds, I stick out my tongue at You in shame. Oh, my precious husband, Shiva!

Please don’t call me “Goddess.” I do not want to live forever, let me leave this world of loss. I’ve had a strange and difficult life-You would not understand, though You made me, forced me to kill, please spare me aging into a useless crone, begging of my sons-I hate this necklace of skulls, these severed heads, to be alone with my notebook, to write my life, as it ends, is all I crave for.

Body-trapped, crippling hallucination, incessant flow of experience-I was abused and betrayed; the feminine rises-I want my sword to be my word-not to kill but to speak the Truth, to say we all must dream and all must die-I shall hurl my verbal blasts with the precision of a sword-your very wound will be my word. I’m not passive aggressive-stop playing heavy metal in my name.

From childhood-sadness acts of cruelty friendless fruitless attempts beginning frightening always pain again and again what was told to each of us though there was no “we”-every drop of blood another child is born …so many heads strung around my neck, the urge to kill,to die, necklace of skulls pulling at my chest, gruesome Death, dear Lord, what you call victory is my shame …

Twisted with inflammation, I can still say, “Dear Lord, please wake, my precious husband, I give up-I seek nothing but your Presence, Dear Lord, I surrender: please see me-look at these naked breasts, they are but ornaments, malignant, without milk, given me by Chandra-as You Know everything given me is makeshift, can’t you see, dear Lord,I am made of disparate parts …

Yes, dear Lord, the light of Shiva formed my face, Yama gave me hair, Vishnu gave me arms … Chandra, the moon god, gave me these two breasts, Indra gave me my waist, Varuna owns my thighs, earth my hips, Brahma, my feet, Agni, my three eyes- all immortals worshipped me with praise,ornaments and weapons-Shiva gave me a trident-Vishnu a powerful discus while I-I …

I, naked, mask of trust I wore, weighed down by my longing for death in the midst of life, beating heart,straining …  if only never to have been born … for if Chandra gave two breasts to my not-daughter, she’d lose one as we all do through cancer-for my sons I will lie down forever in darkness as I am made to protect my children who live for they only never die if never born …

Broken Hearted, bodily burial ground, dependent on opioids to face pain, fear-I slaughtered them but self-hatred never dies-this mirror, source of my slavery as me-I wrestle less with Your powers, forcing me to sleep, forcing me to wake, such slavery though my love for Shiva, I-I-I pray my words break free from my tongue, that my stuttering self, that my mouth…oh, Lord …

I can no longer sell my soul for a little hit of  love. Mother showed me old age so the older I become, the more filled with shame. I cannot even walk. My friend, a doll, dollhouses of paper prayers, you let her throw them away. “They had to go,” fingers pointing only once the garbage truck pulled out, “they’re made of dust, they harm my house of perfection.”… so no, I cannot.

Changeless past, exists only in my mind, which will die, changeless as my name, condemned,  eternally unknown. Eternally, how I wanted to love, to live with love, to give, how few there were to do it with so if for nothing then if music, if art. There was no music in the house, no songs, I learned to only feel safe when alone, trying to forgive myself for things I never did …

This dream’s not assigned one body, just painful points of view-repetition is overrated-I die each time I kill, dear Lord, stop making me feel I am choosing to do it-please stop this bloodlust- You trapped me in this makeshift body, born of death, made from your desire to possess all of me, nonexistent realm of suffering where you placed me… please erase me, Lord I beg you. Please.

…

Bobbi Lurie is the author of The Book I Never Read, Letter From The Lawn, Grief Suite and the morphine poems. She lives in New Mexico.