Dear Diary,
When I was little, sometimes Iād accidentally say āIn the name of the father, the mother, and the holy spirit.ā And God is a mother, really. Heās where we all came from. There is something so cosmic about pregnancy, by the way. Or maybe I mix up the cosmic and the pedestrian.
Anyway, I forgot my point. Isabelleās parents are getting a divorce, and my parents sat me down to make a big deal about it. How come I get in trouble for gossip when they clearly love it just the same? Itās dumb. I can tell theyāre gloating that their marriage is still bound up by law (even though it clearly fucking shouldnāt be). There is no marriage in heaven. We are all siblings up there.
Do you ever think about how God invented womanhood, and how he could do that without womanhood inside him? The Christ child is already an explosion of an eternal God. God as a baby! And then that baby grew up to be Jesus, and Jesus loved love. I know he loves me well, understands me fully. God sees everything, sees every part of my body, creates every part of my body, knows every part of my body, loves every part of my body.
Also, Jesus sort of had a vagina after dying. You could call it being reborn, actually. Thatās pretty biblical considering baptism and all. I want to put my hand into the side wound of Christ. I want to put my tongue inside him. I want to drink the blood of Christ, sober as Peter, no communion wine in sight. I want the Holy Spirit to come inside me next to the Father and the Son. I want Christ splayed on the cross, and I want him to raise me up, up, up.
Diary, I am not sacreligious. I am filling myself up with God. I love Him even when-- especially when-- He asks me to smear blood across my threshold and brutalizes those who donāt love Him as much as I do. Thatās hot. I put a bra on the crucifix not as degradation but as offering. Perhaps I am exchanging it for His motherly God cock. How does God expect me to pay attention in Calculus? Is everyone thinking about dirty things in math class?
I enjoy screaming Godās name into my pillow like a hymn. Sometimes when I masturbate, I shove my hand so far up inside me that I forget the whole point of pleasure and just explore, trying to reach my cervix or get past it. I never get past it. Itās not really something Iām interested in anatomically, or at least not in the modern way. I want to live like the first people to cut open a body and find out whatās in there.
Mostly, these days, I sit in bed and rewrite the bible. I hate the King James version. I hate King James. Boys have always been too fucking loud.
In the beginning, God spewed Himself out of His own vagina, and it felt so good. God made a hundred other things, and then He got to me, and I forget if itās 2003 or 2004 or 2005 or 2006. And the earth was without form, so God massaged a huge ball into being. And He moved in her upon the face of the waters. I feel Him moving in me. And we love it. Weāre God, arenāt we? And God loves to ruin His creation, sending floods all over her, whispering the secret of sex, killing her, and knowing Heāll bring her back to life. My God is Medea.
I am so sorry if I am making girls the bad guys, but my violence is deep, penetrating tenderness. And every God is written by a man, and I am so frustrated. And I am so bored. Everyone is so bored. People are killing themselves out of boredom. Sarah Nivens killed herself, and the school practically threw a grief party, like they finally had an excuse to celebrate her just because she placed in state for soccer. Hardly placed. Meanwhile, Lou Hogarth knocked back a bunch of pills too, and no one said shit when she didnāt show up for school. They certainly didnāt hold a fucking assembly. Mary Ramone tried to kill herself, but it didnāt work, and she learned that life could get a thousand times worse than what she thought was worth killing herself over. Derrick Ledger had a hunting accident that makes me suspicious, especially since we all heard that his cousin Mike had just shot himself dead.
And then I get curious and imagine cousin Mike holding a gun, shaking or still, in his mouth or to his temple, sitting down or standing up, a blowback or a crumple. Is he still in his school uniform? I donāt want that. I actually hate that stuff.
I wash my hands, I brush my teeth, I wash my hands again. I think about all the blood going through my whole body. I am not hungry. I dress myself: underwear, bra, uniform skirt, white blouse, gray sweater, rosary in my pocket.
I bought wine for later at Quickies. Who would call a store that? Why are there so many lascivious convenience stores? And it smelled like sweating lard, and I was almost hungry.
They told me to turn to God. All the time, they told me to turn to God. Mike shoots himself? Hold a prayer service. Your parents are zombies? Ten Hail Marys. Something is eating you from deep in your gut, inking out your stomach and your lungs and your liver? Head down and pray again. The rosary for hearing voices. Sunday Mass for masochistic urges. So I have done this, I have turned to God, and God has finally turned to me. We lock in with each other. He whispers to me while Iām falling asleep, not even sure if Iāll catch His words, and I hold back a smile. I am going all the way. If Jacob gropes Hannah K. and she has to stop going to school because of the flashbacks, the priest says to us girls we must turn to the good book. I am feeling things that are new to me. I am growing into a body I donāt understand, and I wish the body would stop growing. Thank you for giving me the comfortable resting place of a spirit instead of a body, Father William. And my father has locked me in my room several times. And my parents fight over the sound of the dial-up running. And I am watching my classmates die. And I am seeing the world set me aside to deal with the more pressing problem of getting as much money as they possibly can. And I am turning to God. I am showing you what happens when I turn to God. I want you to see what happens tonight and know I am following your rules.
Luke Sutton crashed his car on Melville Road three days ago. He got out alright enough for an open-casket funeral. I am going to eat him. And heās going to be the only thing I eat. My body, my temple, my empty temple. How dare I nourish it with anything until it is already blessed? I see girls growing more emaciated by accident every single day around me. And when I fast, I think less and less about anything upsetting. Something primal pounds inside my skull and begs me to get food. I know that is the voice of the devil.
The only thing Iāve been eating for the past two weeks has been the stale Eucharist I stole when I was altar serving last month. Itās been sitting in my room ever since. Iāve been saying prayers over it, blessing it with my momās capsules cut in half as if that could discourage me from eating it someday. I invite it down my throat with wine. Iāve stopped making myself throw up so I can keep the holy body inside me. And knowing Jesus is inside me all the time makes me so tender between my legs. Does Jesus want to take a bite of me back? I spend all this time eating His body, so surely He wants a taste of mine. And maybe Iāll writhe a little, but I know I get to eat Him in the end, so it doesnāt matter. I like that taking a bite out of Jesus also means taking a bite out of His soul.
The air at school is yellow. I get by a half a day without raising my hand. I spend lunch in the bathroom, listening to Megan and some freshman throwing up in the stalls flanking mine. Theyāre going to get vomit all over their uniforms.
In English, some dumb boy turns the lights off, and a couple of girls scream. The boys have been doing this a lot lately, and the girls just keep screaming. It canāt be real at this point. I know I should be more mad at the boys, but I get so fed up with the fake screaming that I wish I could throw out the power in the whole school, warp into a mass of molting spiders, and give them something so frightening to behold they canāt even scream.
Sometimes at night, after my parents have fallen asleep, I stand in the lighted hallway between dark rooms. I know the devil waits in the dark. I can feel it like a razor under my skin and a clock in my ears and a mill in my stomach. It dresses as a priest, sometimes a nun, and it smiles just outside my vision. I know I cannot fight it. I need to build a shield of God from the inside of me because I still tremble until the sun rises, sitting in the hallway, unable to move, the devil shifting into horrors beyond the capacity of imagination.
When I leave school, I donāt wield keys between my fingers. Iāve started carrying my crucifix that Iāve been sharpening every day for the past year or so. Probably just the past month, actually. God really likes sharp things. I trace it all along my body just to see how close it can get before blood beads out, Iām stringing a whole new rosary onto the baby soft hairs of my arms.
I am not walking home today. Today, Iāll float to the cemetery, and I say āfloatingā because I forget each step as soon as I take it. Or maybe because I am floating.
The truth is, I am so much older than Jesus. Heās not twice my age at thirty-three, or four hundred times my age, or anything else. Iām a descendent of Eve and Adam, and He didnāt show up until Mary.
I am at the cemetery with my unopened wine, my kitchen knife, and my spade, and the seconds go by so slowly. I havenāt been this excited in a long time. Iām feeling dizzy, and I have to sit down. I end up lying down on top of Lukeās grave, so tired I canāt manage a prayer aloud, but I know I wonāt fall asleep. I have slept only a few hours a night these past two weeks. Something about not eating, I think, allows my body to be alert enough not to sleep.
As it always does, time gets darker.
The dirt is so soft. At first I think I can use my hands to scoop it away from my treasure, but it wears me out after a few minutes, and I take the spade out of my backpack. It feels like labor all over my body. I know Iām doing work that Jesus understands. I sweat through my blouse, sweater, and uniform skirt, but I keep them on. My hands grow blisters, and I imagine grapes on the vine bursting underfoot. It takes hours.
Then, thereās a heavy crack. I was growing absentminded, almost missing it until I felt the impact in my teeth. I work swiftly to uncover the rest of the coffin. Another hour, maybe two. I have to break a concrete seal lining it, alternating between the heel of my spade and the heel of my knife. Another hour. But I have the fury of nothing inside me, and I rage into Lukeās new forever house. Debris falls to the wayside.
I am in the grave, on top of his body, sucking in the scent of dirt. He is so pale white itās like a second moon shines from below me.
With all my careful preparation, I had forgotten the wine opener. I try to angle my knife into the cork but end up cutting through it, so I smash the bottle against the side of the coffin. It bleeds onto the powder white fabric. God, itās beautiful. I pour the remaining few inches along Lukeās body and mine. I get drunk much faster without any food in my body, so the wine contributes its fair share to the fuzz in my brain. I take my time, knife in my right hand, a fistful of his hair in my left, and I lap up wine from Lukeās hardly hollow cheeks. I feel a tugging just below my stomach. With gentle hands and a poised knife, I do not stab but rather carve into the meat of his chest.
I am finally hungry.
I claw through muscle, skin, and bone, and seize his heart. I shiver, I throb, I devour. The first bite sends my stomach lurching. As much as I heave, thereās nothing there to vomit, so I feast. I hardly chew. With one hand, I shovel more of whatever I can get into my mouth, and with my other hand, I dig for the rosary in my pocket. I eat more. The sharp rosary cross nicks my hand, but I clutch it anyway, yanking it out. I eat. I reposition the rosary so I am fingering the beads, and I shove it beneath my skirt and under my underwear, rubbing the beads over myself wherever it feels the best. I am fucking Jesus, and He is a girl just like me.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Love,
Your little girl
āļøš„©
