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Baptism in 2005

I sit on a two-year-old varnished wood

of the chapel where I was baptized.

Beloved Sabbath is what they wearwith their necklaces.


A 2005 memory that smells

as my Johnson's Summer Swing childhood.


Reminiscing how my aunt used to

iterate, "The ninth hole is the fit,"

as the leather belt embraces my skinny body―

the grip of manhood they deem me to become.


I wonder how proud my father was

as his child met the spring.

Devotion of my youth, I asked

before the Lord's temple

where they surrendered my young person―

through my tears that they thought were my approval.


Singing the psalms as I witness

while on the tiptoes of their praise.

Vivid is their memory

towards the Holy Book.

I was a child,

witnessed by hundreds of self-proclaimed fairies;

with their CDs and gifts―

as the nursery rhymes I enjoy to sing.


How they held my childhood, for

until now, I am being baptized by their wisdom.

Proclaiming tongues as if it were a perfect sheet―

softest silk.


I kneel with my eyes open―bruised

thighs,

before these two-decade-old rocks.

And as I speak my revolution that echoes throughout the room,

they are forcing me to kneel just to be saved.


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