Girls Who Love Church Girls

thermite bones, alkaline breath,
electric tongue–
there are butterflies in your bloodstream
and i want to rip them out.

you, in your sunday best,
bright and bleeding and beautiful-
me, in my wednesday worst,
trembling and wretched and
the antithesis of holy.

there’s a gospel in your fingertips
dragging over the ragged edges of
a broken collarbone three summers past,
the three marks that you left on my neck,
mother, daughter, holy ghost–

your tongue tastes like battery acid in
my mouth and you steal my gum and
steal my heart and steal my
very soul.
you place me between hallelujah
and amen and i’ve been stuck in
this sweet hour of prayer for three
months.

inhale flame, exhale purity, let me
breathe over that bite i left on your neck.
let me beg forgiveness under your skirt. let
me find the promised land in the valley between
your hips. let me be holy. let me be
forgiven.

amen. amen.
amen.

By Belle Malone

Biography:

Belle Malone is a genderqueer actor, musician, poet, and space enthusiast. They have been three of those things for a little over a decade, though poetry has been their newest adventure. They have fallen in love with making words scream and sigh like lovers.