Flight of the Aggressor

Adam took me to
this heavy metal church
I hated god
I loved heavy metal

and
women

The service deafened me
which meant
no god-talk
and I smiled

I smiled in
church
hating god

Four years my elder,
Adam’s cousin

and
woman

small—maybe five feet—but
woman
you could see it
in her hips

Her juvenile reverse mullet
and her stretched
earlobes
couldn’t hide her
woman hips

Once she sat on my lap

I was high
on yellow jackets
I think

She looked over her
folding chair
at me
and smirked

Adam would think
“you’re going to hell”
because I knew nothing
of his “savior”

But I had a savior
she stole from me
my thirsty razor blade
and steadied my hands
and dried my cheeks
with the spiders from mars

In the heavy metal church
she gave me a smirk
before she led me
to her friend

The proselytizing screamer
previously gay
four years her elder
knotted his fingers with hers
the man she’d wed
alive
in a graveyard

I told Adam
God is like a blind man
walking on a twisting
stone
and he thought
“you’re going to hell”
because I knew nothing
of his “savior”

But I had a savior
and she abandoned me


I found a terrible poem I'd written a number of years ago with the same title and some of the same themes. It was awful--I'm not yet sure this one is any better--so I rewrote it and it turned into this memory of a girl I'd once been in love with. It needs a lot of work, I'm sure.