The Priesthood

the room, this fucking dormitory cist, one bed like a slab they forgot to bury me in, two chairs that nobody sits on, and a corner window that stares out at nothing.

solitude, the old whore, she climbs in bed with you every night, whispers the same tired shit in your ear until you almost believe it’s love.

outside, the low hills squat there like they’re waiting for the world to end so they can finally get some sleep. twenty-three weeks till the harvest, till the priesthood, till I’m swinging a scythe or a censer, ploughing dirt or souls, same difference.

between the Latin and the incense, I stack hay bales that smell like defeat and scrub the church floors on my knees like some penitent dog. dirty nails, cracked, working their way under a ceiling yellowed with God’s cigarette smoke and a hundred years of cracked prayers. on the desk in the corner: a box of yellowed notes pulled from the chapel vaults, smelling of mould and somebody else’s guilt.

and the thoughts, Christ, always the same, hammering like a cheap clock in a flophouse, the same war inside the skull, demons wearing cassocks, a kid barely old enough to shave with his youth sucked out fast by the hot breath of a priest who swore it was salvation and called the taste of it, holy.

the rusting metal bar,
against the back of the chair,
will be over soon.