Holy Hell

I used to be a born-again christian, or so I thought. I prayed, tithed, studied the “good word”, treated my neighbor with kindness, compassion and respect. I was generous to many a fellow traveler. At times, I would embark on journeys to “spread the good news”, hitch-hiking from place to place without care for money or a place to stay. Real book of Acts type shit.

During this surreal chapter of my life, I also believed in a place the world refers to as “Hell.” Yes, laugh it up, you should. An adult man, fearing an everlasting place of burning and torment. What the fuck was in that Kool-aid?

 

Time has caressed my locks leaving gray, shimmering streaks behind and I realize…I still do–I still believe in Hell.

This is where I almost lose you. Just give me a second before you yawn and check your cell phone to appease the addiction you’d rather call “muscle memory.”

Sheol, as it is written in Hebrew in the Old Testament of the Bible, is simply the grave. Of course, denominations are splintering by the week because of interpretive dogma. What is literal and metaphor tend to be in the eye of the besmoldered. The point is, real love doesn’t have to use fear as a tool.

I believe Love is an open cage, with the freedom to allow any and all you claim you love, to come and go as they please.

 

The Hell I believe creeps in like a fog…while I sit and finish my breakfast and reach for my boots.

Suddenly, my head feels ten feet under water. A ringing in my ear pierces through my skull and fill the room with a reverberating raucous. Invisible demons start hammering at my head.

I stand and walk gently to the restroom, for my place has become a rocking vessel atop a tempest.

The vomit comes furiously and incessantly.

A heavy dark blanket wraps me up as I lay beside the toilet, slobber streaks like webs.

Chunks of breakfast swimming in the battery acid in the toilet bowl.

Heart pounding.

Sweat.

Fluids and matter coming out of both ends simultaneously.

Yes, I know, some of my best poetry.

I remind myself to breathe calmly, I know the score, I’ve been here before.

My eyes close gently and open, except now I am in the bathtub.

Who knows how the hell I got there.

 

Time.

Water.

Small bites of anything that doesn’t cause a gag reaction.

Time.

More water.

Another bite.

And I look across my velvet comforter as if it were a vast meadow.

I no longer wait for the deer of the dawn.

 

The dawn itself will do.

 

∞