Purgatory - Lynn Mugisha

HB: “I suffer because I imagine the two of us, I suffer because that’s the most I can do.”

MG: “Suffering feels religious only if you do it right.”

Like making a church out of this body.

Placing this rib aside,

making an exorcism of all the reasons not to.

I’m willing to give myself wholly.

Let you drown in me, a baptism, blemish-less. Holy.

Me, heavy in your mouth like your last confession,

defining this in names anew,

twisting tongues to speak in them,

and ignoring the power in their possession.

This time, I’ll beg to be forgiven.

For an offering that feels so heathen.

Here is the chalice,

sip the inconsistency of our intimacy away.

Take this body, in remembrance of how in this moment,

we are a mockery of celestial bodies, burning, falling, untamed.

A deity. Prayed to. An alter lain to.

But still

I suffer

because imagining is the most I can do.

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Ainembabazi Lynn Mugisha (21st century) Uganda

Source: Brittle Paper