perhappened mag
issue 12: PARADE
a conversation over a
dissected frog burdened
by the crucified jesus
hanging on the wall
TRINI ROGANDO
a conversation over a dissected frog
Love, these days: we pretend the blood of animals is a vessel for fluent language. Listen. Violence is this sound, common and cruel— I never learned differences of breaking to blessing. In here we slice light from pelvis to neck understanding girls who cleaved their chests all orderly, lined up, desperate days of homily and harmony; I’ve never felt worship so real. These relinquishing instincts. Tonight I might dream: have you ever wanted to touch. To fold like a crane, light and sound only. Look at us. All we do is want and ache. Crushed by the weight of gorgeous sin, that catharsis is a second coming. |
burdened by the crucifix on the classroom wall
We are seventeen and everything is beautiful, even endings. Chalices brimming with delinquent worship, sanctioned but reverent. Our bodies are gilded scalpels to wield, to divide beyond these spearlight Sunbelt days, believing that God, too, is found in briefness. The sacrificial air and lack; laboratory-grade to carve out a soul. Dissection that admit the desire for use. How brave to choose Love, the breath between sacrifice and stillness. I ask for both. A life comprised in parades of glory, organs lined up prettily: distilled to fluorescence; Jesus’s still, stone eyes. Am I describing death or The absence of atonement. I sometimes feel like I am my wanting, that you could rapture me whole. |