A note from the author: This poem discusses and centers around instances of sexual violence, abuse, and trauma, which may be upsetting for some readers.
sometimes i wonder if christ would still have saved us if she were a woman
it is gospel that in the throes
of christ's passion, he foresaw all we would do
and still chose to stagger to the cross. he asked his father
if this is his will, then he shall carry it for love of the wailing earth
and think us worth saving. but i wonder how
this biblical act of love translates, as christ
sat in the mangled warble in my throat, as
he stared at a dark ceiling with me,
if only to will away the grunting ogre atop me
siphoning desire, leaving a pit of godless, eating dark, a sliver
of a girl inside. how did christ look at the blossom of purple on my
cheek as my mind sprouted horn and ruffled gills
and willed pustule on the man who gave it to me, to make
him more beast than man, and say he was worthy. how i wonder if christ
had been a woman, would she have changed her mind as i confided
to the pug-faced priest of unforgivable sin his colleague
had committed in his cold office, the way he
molded my back into tattered leather, how he guzzled my rainbow
jelly perfume, how he goaded me for more.
if christ crumpled with me when a man gnarled himself
into my body, how i went limp, the same burn behind
his eyes while mine tried to elongate his teeth and protract his claws,
tried to warp his ears, tried to engorge his jowls - tried to fathom
monsters and men, later trilling undecipherable words until
my vocal cords shook fiber thin in an empty cathedral the night
of my rape and heard no voice back—just my own, as i demanded she make
herself known, as i cried out asking if she was there.
if christ were a woman, would she have felt every incision
i made into my body to flush out these men, out of my blood, to rid
myself of their touch—those who depredated my
bowels, colonized sinew, cracked bone,
breached bronchiole, and burst artery to
inhabit and cannibalize me, to suckle a girlhood i did not get
to have without male scrutiny, coincident with
their appetite, even when i tried to bury
my body, suffocate on perfume and hairspray and
lipstick to eclipse what they had muscled inside me, what had
pulsated, sickly and slick, what had me spill
body and blood and dignity, had me want to pluck what could have
been a son out of me, fearing it would resemble man. if christ
were a woman, would she have seen my eyes raised to pulpit
for revelation, if she saw me pleading with her painted
cruciform on church stucco, probing for pulse
and reason, for logic, for penance. if she felt my knees tremble
at every confessional and pew as i tried to pray away
palm prints on waist, berated for the flutter of my neckline
and if she understood to the marrow what that fear was, primordial
incessant, noose-considering, crucifying.
if christ were a woman, would she have considered this roster of monster
and still believed they were worth saving, with the heft of her own breast
and the sway of hip, with eyes nailed on her body as she
grew, with every street corner a danger, every night a hazard,
if she saw every exchange of skin, every lingering gaze, and understood
she was being swallowed with every stare, that
there was no way to simply be, that there was always consumption,
voracious, that greed is what we are subject to
and its suppression still isn't a mercy. if christ saw as she parsed
actions, everything withheld, how we
move in flocks, how trepidation is our default operation, how
many of us are covered head to toe and still whisked to corners
or dark alleys or streets or sold, how we are often broodmare
or shame, how money is a muzzle. if christ were god made woman-flesh,
would she too believe she was stained,
the same way i did closing my legs to make amends as i
begged on the kneeler, as confession turned to sermon, as
priests spat words and called me a slut, slithering under my nails and skin.
would christ know that a woman is all compromise. would christ
have been stoned. would christ have
looked at his mother and apologized on behalf of god, for she was only
13, a girl, branded and broken apart, nipples cracked to convulse a messiah
from between her child legs, crowned for a purity she had no choice to inhabit,
for a girlhood she did not live to be put under veil and her husband's
mercy. if she would have recognized tenfold as she walked bethlehem
and nazareth, where girls are traded for milk and honey,
but are anything but paradise and yet still harvested like we are. if christ
could see her lineage, daughter of david, daughter of solomon,
and plucked all the carnage in it, the atrocities and erasure
of queens and wives, of mothers, of other daughters, all to
call back to kings who left legacies of ragged violence. would
christ still have lumbered to the cross, would she have cried with
the weeping women, would she have seen all of the monsters making
homes in our ribs and thought to save them. would the soldiers
have stopped their hands at the nails in her wrists. would she
still ask her father to forgive them, for they do not know what they do,
when so many have whispered in my ear that they knew
exactly what they were doing. if christ felt me grind her body
and blood in my teeth as i consumed host after host for absolution,
for the incense to envelop me and eat me alive, to be lost in
so much holy smoke and spirit, to finally be not afraid. would
she have saved us, would she have spared me?
