Azrael’s Interlude
Churchgirl screams / made a deal / with Azrael / burned his thumb / in the back of her bible / carried his name / in the back of her throat / Put me back, she pleads / he holds her open / like a palm / her body longs / to be a fist
Churchgirl
after jeanann verlee’s communion
I know a girl whose body is a choir. I think my own body is a chorus that I have forgotten the lyrics to. I hide between lines of pews and sing behind the thick skulls of preachers long before the first drop of blood appears. I let myself drift toward pulpits, giving heaven my hallelujah for this dog-heart. Sometimes I think my body is on fire. I think God set my body on fire in the names of Tamar and Shadrach. I met a girl whose body was a shrine. She felt like God, the way she wanted to be believed. I watched her peel her body off mine like fruit skin, grabbed my pinky and made me swear not to tell our mommas.
What happens on Earth keeps me up at night. On Sundays we talk about memories: the sacred heart covered in thorns, the body of Christ, bloody and swelled to a holy pulp, bullet wound in his abdomen. Tupac died for our sins. Screw guilt. I’m Tupac; kiss me. My blood comes in the color of ugly cherries. I ask God to make it stop. I peel through layers of cellophane, plastered to my skin with chicken grease. When it bubbles I light my body on fire.
When it bubbles I ask you to light my body on fire. I met a boy who sprouted in Gethsemane. He wanted to be the tongue and the grapefruit, too. I burned his image in the palm of my hand. I watched a moth toss itself into the flame and saw myself. I’m always digging through pomegranate seeds in search of memories that disguise themselves as wounds. I know a girl who memorized her birth. Pleading in Jethro, halos wrapped around her newborn wrists. We spent our summers licking the sunsets off each other’s eyelids. Little girls filled with too much heat. I still shiver at every meeting with Florida water, holding my breath before I pirouette. My rancid palms, these quivering fists. I let a boy tell me that my body is a crime scene. I let another stick two fingers inside — just to be sure. He tells me about the girl who tastes like prayer, begs me to repent with him. I think that my body is a notebook. I rip through its pages in search of questions that only God can answer. I ask for blank skin. My body still reeks of kerosene. Please cut the heat out of me.
Triniti Wade (b. 1999) is a writer from Miami, Florida. Her writing explores fragments of Black girlhood, longing, and religion. Her work has been featured in anthologies by the YoungArts Foundation, Scholastic, and O, Miami. She has been recognized by both the Cave Canem Foundation and Miami Writers Institute through literary workshops. She’s currently pursuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at The New School.