Where Else Could I Belong?

The pyramidal desert peaks of West Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

(S, one isn't all there is)

I scrambled
Over the rocks
Digging into my flesh
Lit from within
By a sacral fire
Carrying the Spirits with me
Bleeding on the open earth
Parched, yet believing in love
Where else could I go?

Mysteries
I made a fine coat of you
To enfold me from the storms
Mother, you forgot
To wrap me up
As mothers wrap
Their children tight
But father stripped me
Your god left me out
In the tide
Washing cold over my bones
Exposed
Where else could I go?

Midnight came
Black brocade
Enthused with gilded threads
Of starlight
Generations of stars
Burning, burned out
Rising and falling down
Through the Ether
Where else could they go?

Did I become
A prophet
For our family story
Carrying with me
Father's transgressions
Mother's weaknesses
I pity both
Harbor no vengeance
For I have given them over
As an offering
To the sky
Where else could I give them?

I raged like a wounded animal
Stripped of its claws
Lovers were my fodder
Undressing them one by one
Stripping them of their frailties

One by one
I left behind me
A trail of water
In the burning and open
Desert
What else could I have left
Behind me?

I came
To your shrine
Open with offerings
Carrying my heart
In my hand
On fire and stripped
Naked
Without peers
Without family or tribe

The drum of your spirit
Sounded a regular beat
Through me
Dancing, whirling
A hand towards heaven
Fingers towards the earth

Your soil
Your fragrance
Your knowledge
Planted like a seed
In the empty soil
I became your devotee
What else could I become?

Fresh from your kiss
I gathered the water
I had left behind me
I nourished thirst
And fed the hungry spirits
All belong to me
I belong to all of them

There is not one
Never one
Not one god, not one heart
Single or demanding
Only the All
Where else could I belong?