Some| |Body

My body is a temple

No, I don't worship

.

.

The walls are scrubbed

The floors clean

The stained-glass eyes

Still got that gleam

But

The pews lie still

The tomes unread

Hymns unsung

Sermons unsaid

.

.

"You're so skinny"

"What flab?"

"Shut up"

"You're not fat"

.

.

Sweet nothings pass by

The doors stay shut

They say every| |body

Was stardust once

They say when the

Universe

Bled into being

In an ocean of fire

In the ichor of suns

Not even begun

Silent we lay

In the cosmic debris

The breath of our kind

Waiting to be

Awoken

.

.

We are that flare

10 billion years burning

Our DNA molded

In the first crucible

That scintillating chaos

Birthed life from its screams

And we are the children

Of embers and dreams

.

.

And yet still it seems

That when my genes

Spill over my jeans

My chest too loose

My nose too wide

My ass too small

My arms too lean

.

.

“Do you like how I shine?”

“Dullness suits me just fine.”

“I’m a spark of the divine!”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll be mine.”

"But I'm stardust, see?!"

"You're not the right dust for me."

.

.

They say not to weigh

Your hopes on another

Never lose your way

Amidst faceless lovers

That in foreign souls

You won’t find completion

Won’t patch up the holes

They can’t heal the lesion

.

.

But love still defines us

It breaks us and binds us

After all, what is “gay”

But a quick way to say

“I’m a man who loves men”

And I question it then

If I’ve never been

In love, in romance

Is there somehow a chance

That “gay” isn’t me?

Then what would I be

Without gravity

There’s just entropy

.

.

Drifting through nothing

In the shadow of suns

Alone

Yet here I’m reminded

In the vacuous cold

Of the flames that birthed me

Of the stars that watched me grow

Of the cosmos that said

“Let there be life”

And here

For once

I am home

.

.

‘Cause I left

My temple

Long, long ago

When I was little

They sang

What the church should be

“The church is not a building,

The church is not a steeple,

The church is not a resting place,

The church is the people ”

.

And that’s where it ends

Walls, to protect

The inside from harm

Spire, stretching ever

Toward the sky

Sanctuary, true

Sanctum and solace

People

.

.

In each of us

The sacred

In each of us

The pure

In each of our bodies

Lies God

Don’t tell me

“Skinny”

I won’t tell you

“Lean”

Don’t tell me

“Handsome”

I won’t tell you

“Beauty queen”

.

.

Tell me

“Constellation”

I’ll tell you

“Sunfire”

Tell me

“Supernova”

I’ll tell you

“Inspired

.

.

By planets

And moons

And stars

And more”

.

.

Be

More

.

.

Than a temple

Than a body

Than skinny

Than beauty

.

.

Be

More.