LIT

Ariana Grande Guts a Fierce Deity

Ariana enters  into the final day of her novena
   masticates jagged prayers between her teeth
           until her fledgling tongue quiets
                                         into soft murmurations
she reaches the threshold       genuflects
             enters into this cathedral of vices
       where so many before have sought asylum
she offers her pésame to the spirits
                                                      filling the aisles
these ghosts of trauma past         echoing forth
               to bear witness to their fierce deity
her staccato stilettos fill the silence
          their reverb ricocheting off tile and stone
like so many bullets in her onlookers’
                                             emptied eye sockets
reaching the altar     she raises hands up
              to the moon above this city of her dead
commands the crowd
                               light me up
                               bind me up
touch it                     touch it                   touch it
                                     she lays her body down
                                                and their hands do
                                                                adorn her
gouging and gashing
                                    this self-declared goddess
of American excess                  painting caravans
of bloodletting   across the pale canvas
                                                           of her larynx
                                                  and their hands do
                                                                  adore her
cracking open her chest
releasing bloody melisma
                             of lung      and heart      and rib
a testament to the violence endured
                   in the journey from field to mountain
       valley to river
these are the sins endured by her kingdom
                                                         made manifest
tracks of skin flayed penitential
                               touch it
                    crown of barbed wire and laceration
                               touch it
the sacrifice of a body rendered
into an exquisite corpse
             the promise of salvation if only they will
                                          perform this litany and
                              touch it
                              touch it
                              touch it
the spirits bear her up
                                        like a contorted melody
throats aching with the memory of
                                                        righteous fury
finally        loose in death       finally          visible
                               in the threnody of their cries
here at last lies their remittance   a debt repaid
in the form of a diva offered up
                                  of her own volition
bathing this darkest  isthmian night of the soul
in the refracted sounds of this
                                                 frenetic purgatory
moonlight pooling          dismantled
            in the shattered wreckage of her hands
Ariana
                               fills the threads of her lungs
               bites her lip
                                     and breaks open the sky

her wail rends the moon from its observatory
begs it to descend upon the prison of these
                                                                       walls
and in turn     the moon rebukes her mantle
                                                     echoes the call
vows to stand by no longer
                                  and plummets to the earth
                                           with celestial lethality

the spirits bask for mere moments in this
                                                   ruined moonlight
ultraviolet reflections filling in the details   lost
to borders   and disappearances    and archives
before exiting the memories
                      of where the cathedral once stood

dust settling on their skin
                       their tongues begin to form words
not spoken in weeks    decades     centuries
as they welcome themselves back
            they set out to build their own sanctuary