Fragments · Poetry
i. ninth house / scorpio
the autopsy gospel
i was not born curious.
i was born with a shovel.
born with a mouth full of grave dirt
and questions nobody wanted baptized.
they said,
don’t go looking for trouble.
so naturally,
i studied the map.
learned that every family tree
has roots wrapped around a rib cage.
learned that truth is never buried alone.
it has witnesses.
it has worms.
it has paperwork.
i learned god has a basement.
i learned grief has a syllabus.
i learned the dead do not haunt houses
half as well as the living haunt language.
and i,
black moon with black lungs,
kept breathing in the forbidden.
scorpio in the ninth,
so i don’t believe in easy answers.
i believe in autopsy.
i believe in cutting the story open
until the lie stops pretending
it was ever alive.
i believe in the kind of faith
that survives a crime scene.
the kind that says,
show me the wound
and i’ll show you the doctrine.
show me the doctrine
and i’ll show you who benefits.
show me who benefits
and i’ll show you why they called me dangerous
when all i did
was read the fine print on the coffin.
i am not morbid.
i am literate in endings.
i do not worship darkness.
i know how to work under low light.
there is a difference.
i went where they told me not to look
and found a classroom.
found a curriculum.
found my name written in ink so black
it looked like a bruise
trying to become scripture.