Schisms in the Temple of Flesh

I have dreams in which I smell burning plastic
--a prelude to the obscure smoke that swallows sanity.
Soot covered eyes sting from sweat
and the strain of seeing in the pitch black.

Fear overtakes me...
I grab the plastic crucifix from my wall,
pry Christ from the cross,
and throw Him on the floor.
I break off His limbs,
shatter His body,
and shove the plastic morsels
down my throat.
Tender flesh rips as I choke down the
jagged edges.

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!"

I gurgle the words
and crimson clots speckle white bed linens.

Pain.

I rip at my throat,
rake skin under yellowed
fingernails and tinge them scarlet.

I fade and falter, reveling euphoric
as copper-tasting droplets
fill the air with each rending cough.
They swirl in slow motion...
red mist rainbows
to decorate my lack of faith.

The droplets become blood angels fornicating
on my life's breath.
Licking, groping, and mixing
with DNA and proteins.
Evolving and degenerating
into bastard demons
that dwell in the synapses
linking my flesh to my soul.
They mean to possess me...
make me rip and bite and ruin pretty flesh.

But instead they are quickly devoured
by the six hundred and sixty six
plastic messiahs swimming in my veins.
They swallow my sins
and excrete salvation.

Those same saviors search constantly for the one
crucifix they called home
so they can escape my temple of flesh
(but they'll never find it
in the graveyard of tiny broken
crosses buried in my back yard.)

A preacher once told me
that God was everywhere --even in me.
I had to disagree.
God wasn't in me until I put Him there.