Love Language

They say she’s gone the way of Cain,
wallows in intentional misery                
as transgressor, slave to the spirit 
working in her, a daughter of disobedience. 

 

But she insists she’s God’s child                                                                                                
since He punishes her like a parent,
like when he twisted her up in bedding 
and beat her almost nameless.                                    
 
She couldn’t remember her next breath
or how she found her way out,
didn’t know younger shapes in bunk beds  
noticed her spasming for air, swollen-faced, 
glasses broken on the hall floor—
siblings who later call her liar. 

 

She lay there born again, wet, 
swaddled in their first pledge: 
to love her with discipline.
So when they disown her from God now,      
it doesn’t take.
Taught God loves with violence,
she never doubts that she’s His child.

Dead Snakes, August 2015