And the silver tastes like blood

And I’m a stranger to this city, thirty silver pieces
I pay to cross the highway – that was all I carried.

Smoky coins, old cigarettes, and the taste of ash in
mouth. I wear a scarf tight, right, to cover the
immortal bruise. Nooses are the new fad, don’t you know?

And street preachers shout out to cast Devils
from the towers that lick the sky, offering salvation
                    in little pocket Bibles. 

            I stow one away for safekeeping,
and a mourning dove cries out: Let my people go!
Us outcasts and betrayers, Sicarios and Iscariots.

I know the blade well, know a promise I once made, that
my greatest love must be kissed into rusty oblivion.

In Gethsemane, I watched Him bloom. I cut roses from
his crown of thorns to mark my unknown grave.
      And when the rope tightened, I did not die.

                        Now I wander. Lost. 

                                 Hopeless.

                  Damnation is the thirst of
                no satiation, and to lose Him?

                       ‘Tis to become Hell.

                  Hell, Hell, I know that well.