I have traversed those seas for you,
What is it? Seven? That is what we said.
I am now in one of those wide oceans,
On an island, some island, maybe Pitcairn.
I am no more a man than when I was a child,
Unspanked and unspoken to, a child like a lamb,
A lamb like a guilt-laden Judas on a tree,
A lamb like a vehicle for our salvation.
O, Salvation - one, two - how long I have longed for three?
You didn’t seem to come, or you came too fast for me to see,
Or too slow for me to notice.
I am now like a machine,
Unwept and unwrapped,
I don’t know what snow makes me;
I don’t know who tethers me,
Or who cuts my ties,
Or who presses me back down again.
I have died, perhaps once,
Perhaps twice, perhaps more, many more times.
All I can feel is the spike in my limbs,
And the sort of stopping of my heart,
All against a rock like a limpet, maybe dead or maybe alive,
Who knows? Who knows? The next turn is one I have not seen before.
All I know is that a death is tingling my nerves.
It is no more than I can explain now.
In birth, there is the middle.
The middle is the end.
The end is the beginning of the middle.
The middle is where I lie.
I lie. And I lie. And I lie in the middle.
I lie and I lie and I lie in the middle.
Dear Abba, take me unto you -
No salvation, no absolution -
I know my sins.
Please let me just be what I was before the middle.
Please. Please. Please.
Omen.
— Gabriel Fenteany, November 22, 2013
