the amazing hybrid goth-christian-nerd girl

No wonder I clique-hopped so much in high school. Here’s a poem I just found that I wrote when I was 16, dated Good Friday, 1999.

(Clearly I missed out on a brilliant career as a praise chorus writer. If only I’d played the guitar.)

The gods of Egypt had their deaths.
Their grieving worshippers and slaves
Left bodies emptied of their breaths
In rich, sweet-smelling, airless graves.

The Caesars die; patricians weep
And let them lie in rotting state.
The brains that knew no easy sleep
Grow cool and silent, soon or late.

All gods that go in guise of man
Return, as men, and are resolved
Into the dust– shed as they can
The weight that on their flesh devolved.

We offered Caesar what we must–
The coins that bear his lifeless face–
And mixed our sweat with Egypt’s dust
Till blood redeemed our tired race.

The curtain torn within the shrine,
The bloodied nails, the thorny crown,
The sponge that drooled its sour wine,
All mock us, as we lift him down.

From first to last, from best to worst,
All gods must die; one died today–
The one we loved– in pain and thirst.
We lift him down, and do not pray.