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letra de as far as the east is from the (navel to the) west - levi the poet

i can’t remember when you became a hypothetical. i still talk to the sky and the black backs of my eyelids, but it’s been some time since your son transitioned from person to proposition. i keep conjuring his name up over my wife at night, like a seance. the ghost still calms her nerves, so i keep praying while i wonder what i’ll say when i run out of hat tricks and smoke bombs. i keep disappearing behind the distractions. we both know how well i procrastinate, so the night that i finally began to fear whether or not i’d lost my faith… i thought it was too late. i wrote down the confession like a hook for a song: “when i stopped believing in god, i blamed it on him, and thought, ‘well, if this is what you want…'”

heavenly father, when the fathers tried to exorcise the demons from my father they simply spoke back and begged for their medication, and i finally believed in the gift of tongues. i heard him speak out in one legion of them while the comfortable line between oppression and possession collapsed as disconcerting as your scribbles in the sand to a man who is still cutting his t–th on forgiveness, unable to let go of the stones making their way through the backs of his hands for all of the stubbornness in his grip and the way that even his fists fold back in upon themselves

i can’t touch my toes to the mirage. if the ground is a foundation it is one evasive facade. i got lost and the only way that i could talk to god was through profanity and absolutely nothing and maybe that’s what he was going for all along

we’re tired of floating. tired of constantly examining motive. tired of ascribing it. tired of acting like we know. it’s exhausting – what if we don’t? tired of the circle. tired of equating confirmation with affirmation

applause is a poor god

it’s dark inside of my stomach, bent, shoving my head out the lower half of my back and collapsing beneath the weight of what it all looks from here. i heard the fear, heard the fear, heard the fear, know what fear and trembling looks like – we’re working it out. isn’t that a part of the process?

it’s no joke

sometimes the bride slips out the back but sometimes the spirit flees

sometimes it’s dissension and sometimes it’s prophecy

sometimes it’s good, old fashioned adultery, but if conquest is franchised as love for long enough, then the latter becomes the trigger for your panic attack. i don’t know how to get the childlikeness back, and if salvation is contingent on a faith like that – where are the waterfalls? where’s the boy down to backflip into the river? maybe the current shifted, maybe the color’s different, but

i
have
not
forgotten
your
voice
and
the
only
thing
it
speaks
is
love
and i recognize it because
that
word
never
comes
to
me
from
me

for every conclusion posited as a question, resurrection haunts like a shadow i can’t escape, looming in what i could have sworn was warmth melting ice before whatever it became. i was a son – i was a son – you told me that once, but it’s amazing how petrified portions of the heart
start to see fingers like claws and water like poison and grace like the opposite flowing
indifferent through your lukewarm bloodstream, cooling and clotting and cutting branches from the tree

am i losing you? have you lost me?

is there such a thing?

heavenly father, i have no interest in selling doves for the market

flip the tables

braid the rope

taper the whip

let me speak

are we salesmen or sons? are our positions contingent on commissions and brand loyalty?

i mistook kingdom for empire

salvation for rapture

grace for escape

mission for capture

i mistook mercy for license

family for uniform

gift for owed

cross for sword

heavenly father, it’s all a shot across the bow and i’m aware that it’s not fair to throw the whole
body out but can we scuff up the navel? cut eyes with thrones umbilical as control as though we
forced ourselves from the womb?

keep pushing me down. keep forgiving

new life is death and they call it that for a reason. the birth c-n-l is filthy and beautiful. you’ll get out. i’ve never had more faith in that than now

i know you don’t recognize your reflection

i know you’d have hated who you’ve become and i know you hate who you were so there’s no
use in being anywhere other than present

i know it’s torture

i know that you make it through

i know that you don’t believe it. i know that you don’t have to

i will. we will

i know that
there are cancer and death and indifference acting out on the stage
and playwrights monetizing god from the machine
i know i made a crane of my own, i’m sorry
i poured the concrete and deemed it determined from eternity past
as if that were
justification enough for
how harsh my love had become

(there is a word for those who call evil good. for what it’s worth, i’ve got a verse for that.)

i don’t know what to do with the inconsistencies beyond an apology
acknowledging that
cruciform cert-tude is easily abused
and there’s no better shape for us to use as a scepter
but a specter of truth – like a phantom limb – still itches in my memories
like a flash in a photo booth that leaves light afloat in its wake

i don’t know what to say
say it
“i don’t know what to say.”
say it

“i’ve got nothing to say and no direction to give,” and my friends said
“that’s perfect – tell it exactly how it is.”

i don’t know what to say

say it

but i still hear echoes that can only exist in empty places
and whether they are hearts or tombs
if the ghost that i all but gave up to his grave can leave it behind
well, i am shaped exactly like the vacancy signs
advertising sp-ces that still need residence
i thought that god could only exist in sonnets and villanelles
but you should see their freeform

i hope that my jesus is bigger than all of my heresy, but before you agree
i hope that yours is, too

maybe you and i could talk before we write one another off?
maybe we could both be quiet
maybe we could decrease or maybe we could rally our likeminded and fight it
maybe we could broadcast our dissent
maybe it will hurt
maybe it will heal
maybe it with mar but
maybe it will mend
maybe i don’t have every answer i thought i did but, god
d-mn them, i still have you

- levi the poet

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