A Billion Burning Dreams

Dear Anxiety, The self is born perfect, but buckles beneath the pressure of circumstance. A soul circumcised is not allowed a certain degree of pleasure. You wear the skin of my Father.

Flick tongue of shame behind teeth of doubt. Snakebite angst — a Devil lurking

in Paradise. Old Friend, you have held my hand so tight, for so long that yours became my own. Fistful of frags, trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Rock-hard. Lapidation — the lapidary by which I have etched out the god in me.

Lapis lazuli filed down onto damnatio memoriae . Dear Anxiety, if I could marry you I would.

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