Across the forehead: a wreath of white hash marks. His crown of thorns.
(Look at you. Look at you. Look at you. Look at you.)
Kanye West's "Runaway" rumbles through my earphones. I slouch into my white chair and stare at the painting. "And I always find, I always find something wrong. You've been putting up with my shit just way too long."
I'm a wretched human being with so much glorious evil pent up in my bones. This is why I've swallowed Kanye's latest creation with big bites. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — an unadulterated admission of his weaknesses. A deliberate "Fuck you. I know I'm human. You want to see how human?"
How human: Kanye pulls out his filthiest organs, smears them across his lips and spits the fire we hear heaving through the album.
When my angel mentor read the final draft of my poetry manuscript, she said, "It takes most male writers two or three books to hit this level of honesty."
"I orgasmed to knowing how to make him feel better," I said.
Several men have told me that if I ever married and bought into the wife-lifestyle, I would die. All of me would die. The spark, the dream, the duende. Did Sylvia marry Ted because she loved him? Or because she loved what she and Ted could become for the world?
The other evening, I tripped over an email I'd sent to an exboyfriend years ago. In it, I slur hells along the lines of "I almost married you. I almost gave up everything to stay on that one godawful coast forever and be a fucking wife for you."
(Look at you. Look at you. Look at you. Look at you.)
"Runaway" killed me at first listen because the "I could never take the intimacy and I know it did damage" sentiments kicked an old chord I'd forgotten about.
I've ripped up a handful of decent men. I'm not naturally a nice person. When we watched home videos over Christmas, my youngest sister almost cried because she saw and remembered what a bitch I was. I was 8. And already sinister.
Two Sundays ago, I went to church. The pastor rehashed the story of a blind man who cries out to Jesus, "Have mercy on me." He doesn't cry for justice. He wants mercy. The fruit of impossible compassion.
The pastor said we should desire this: to cry out for blessings — for that mercy — even when we deserve nothing. "Let God bless you in a way that offends others." Ha.. I'm certain my blessings have offended plenty.
A good man is writing at the table next to me. I don't deserve the way he caresses my feet. I don't deserve the way he cares about my father. I don't deserve the way he trusts me. The way he tucks me in because I have the mildest of coughs.
I don't speak to any of the men I've been involved with because they've all extricated evidence of me from their lives. But I know that as much as each one loathes me for his own reasons, every single one will tell you that I'm not as evil as I say I am. That I have "a heart of gold."
That I might just need a longer hug than most.
They used to say I had a messiah complex. That I was trying to save every man I dated. Funny. And mostly untrue. Saving isn't something I ever said I was good at. I just wanted to be crucified.
Or I wanted those men to save me. Maybe I spent all those years collecting little saviors because I believed that if I created a pile large enough, I could burn it as an offering to whomever could really do the saving.
*
I know you're coming in the night like a thief / but I've had some time, O Lord, to hone my lying technique. / I know you think that I'm someone you can trust, / but I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up. / So do you think that we could work out a sign / so I'll know it's you and that it's over so I won't even try?
— Brand New. "Jesus." [song.] [lyrics.]
