Vale, vale, Margreta:
Requiesce Domina in pace aeterna.
Mother, I’m scared:
My body betrays me more daily.
The drugs that keep me stable
Make me stupid,
And I am terrified.
Because I am supposed
To be in control, and I’m not.
Because this betrayal
Seems so arbitrary, unnecessary.
Because I
Don’t like to be afraid.
Mother, I’m scared.
I don’t want to end like you,
Drug-stunned into passivity and confusion-dreams.
The surgeons made a desolation and called it peace;
And I am afraid of that failure.
Mother, I have a favorite fantasy:
To take a grenade —
Hold it tight to my belly
And pull the pin.
I want to punish my body.
I’m already hollow there:
Sterile as any eunuch.
Mother, I want to tell you something:
That without witnesses, or any trial,
I have been judged,
Convicted and found guilty,
Of crimes that I could not commit.
And this body punishes me.
Mother, you told me to trust in myself,
And now my body betrays me.
The touch of love paralyses me;
I am impotent; I cannot repent.
Each sin unconfessed ate away at my absolution;
Every cell rendered invalid, incapable of redemption.
If children are to be the ultimate issue
Of our salvation and immortality, then I
Am an imperfect martyr:
Unwilling to die for my convictions,
Unable to live through my salvation.