i banished all the ghosts of my past

but i never got over my crush on that blonde girl
from sixth grade. someone once told me
we looked alike and my pulse liquefied.
i shone slick with cortisol and my numb
mouth couldn’t shape the words thank you.
we were nineteen when i texted her
i’d always loved her, and she replied
(i could hear the despairing concern in her syrupy voice),
i hope god releases you from this pain. i sped twenty
over the limit forty miles down I-35 and
doorknocked at every apartment until
i found god, but he was busy watching the game.
listen, i don’t make the rules. besides,
what is god supposed to say to the queer kid
who begins with a skeleton in the closet and
ends as one, too? i am forever
craving everything that gives me rot—
i tear the angel wings from passersby
and shudder with guilt, delight.
it seems i haven’t yet figured out how to
be near something precious without loving it
like a closed fist.

Shelbi Church earned her BFA in creative writing from Emerson College. Her poetry and fiction can be found or is forthcoming in Poetry Online, Hobart After Dark, the lickety~split, Overheard, and elsewhere. Originally from Fort Worth, TX, she lives and writes in Boston, MA.