spoon-fed crucifixion

when i was in high school
my mom sent me to jesus 
camp-- but i was already
too far gone-- i had already 
performed my own
baptism in the flyleaf
pages of a notebook--
drank ink instead of wine--
i liked my own skin too 
much to believe in a god
who was disgusted when 
i touched myself-- a throat
full of blanket-- at the beginning
of the weekend  
a priest stood
up in front of our group
holding a thick crucifix &
proclaimed to the men
in the room that if they
weren't ready to give
THAT-- then they weren't
ready to have sex-- he moved
to the ladies & explained
on that we shouldn't
believe boys who tell us
they would give THAT for
us-- if this were true
then none of us would be ready 
to love-- i don't think
love is the type of thing 
anyone can be ready for--
there's not a qualification 
for it-- some of us love 
like nightlights & other ones
of us love like goldfish--
indifferent & staring forward
into the warped face of a 
mouth we fall into--
we played this game in partners
where we each made our own
bowls of ice cream & then picked
a slip of paper from a jar
instructing us how to eat it--
mine told me to feed my
sundae to my partner but only
after they had fed me-- 
the girl i was paired with had two
strawberry blonde pig tails &
her sundae was covered in 
oreo cookie crumbles--mine
with gummy bears & rainbow sprinkles--
she fed me slow & then i followed--
we tried not to make
eye contact with each other
& we nervously laughed at the clumsiness
of each spoon full--
at one point she stopped before
the sundae was done & we sat in the quiet--
the leader explained that love
was like how we were feeding another 
person a sundae-- that the best
type of love would be when
partners fed each other at the same
time & how each different little
pattern represented a different type
of flawed human love--
there was one group next to me
where one person didn't
get fed sundae at all--
that night we shared prayers
& partners & the pigtail
girl said she prays every night
that young girls & boys have the 
strength to stay pure-- i told her
i pray for homeless people because
it sounded like something i should say--
i went back to my room & sat at
the wooden desk-- exhausted & restless
& undeserving of someone to
feed me ice cream with gummy worms. 
i began to write myself a letter--
i thrust my hips into a page--
unwrapped my tongue in letters--
i wrote myself into a body again--
a body deserving of lust--
determined that love wasn't something 
i would be fed by someone else--
love was something i had swallowed
when i was very young & was in the process 
of pulled from myself--
they teach young girls so little
about unfolding & how to 
be your own spoon-- this is my 
self-crucifixion-- the kind of love
with stigmata is the love i eat
while you watch me-- 
this is where you wait while
i am busy becoming untangled 
in blankets-- 
i don't want your prayers for
my purity-- i want your prayers for
plastic spoons & boys who don't
think love his anything to do
with the violence of a god
who loved his hands full of nails--
how many times have
you used the back of a hammer to peel
yourself free?
i sat there & wrote myself into
a letter that i crumpled
& tossed into the trash--
in the morning we met by the
lake with the Franciscans in their
brown robes & prayed old words over
the water--
our father our father
or body-- my body i eat from
a plastic spoon--