blood of the covenant // water of the womb

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blood of the covenant // water of the womb

i let their voices wash over me,  

laying side by side on the side of 101 south  

beside me is a makeshift altar,  

crushed by the wayward california winds and stained red by a small animal’s snapped leg 

one of us whispers a secret into the air,  

a confession  

the rest start up a chorus,  

and tell her to shout instead  

there is no sin in our love 

a car passes by, so fast i can hear it repeat after it leaves,  

and the whoosh of it reminds me of a candle 

lit in the temple and offered  

to those cold gods doused in paint and our oh-so-human sacrifice 

not human sacrifice as a human cut and given,  

but human sacrifice, sacrifice as the most human thing to do, a human sacrificing for faith

the boy nearest me says 

sometimes he feels choked, because he doesn’t know 

if he should be allowed to live 

and sometimes he thinks 

he should choke himself and do the world the mercy  

i tell him,  

we do not breathe as sacrilege,  

but as a near-holy thing  

shouldn’t any life be a blessing? 

and he is the best of us,  

the holiest if we dare use those words 

later, from across from me, they say,  

let’s play a game 

so we pick up where we left off the day before: 

truth-dare, red-green flag, fuck-marry-kill 

a giggle rises up at someone’s answer, and we knock shoulders all around  

one by one by one until we’ve all twisted near in half,  

tasting dirt and burned gas and still grasping each others’ hands 

fingers trickling against wrists like water or blood,  

we make our own religions