Ryan Orme/Elle Emerson
Regarding the Rottgen Pieta
I was thinking, the other day, about the notion that divine forgiveness and or spiritual transcendence
can be achieved through suffering and or isolation.
Is that not the belief of a person so awash in shame that the only catharsis in sight is through pain?
Do you believe you deserve it?
Do you believe you have always deserved it?
Given the chance to face the people you've wronged, would you douse yourself in kerosene and cower at their feet? Would you offer them a lit match with those shaking fingers?
Suffering allows you to escape your guilt, and isn’t it such a weight removed from the hollow of your throat?
That kind of release is easily mistakable for holiness.
Don’t you pretend your hands are claws, secretly wish you could stomach the desire to push out
instead of scratching your forearms raw?
And don’t you get sore?
In the slope between your neck and shoulders,
your jaw.
But suffering is too extravagant a term for these Tuesday morning pains -
This is no spiritual awakening.
This is just dinner on the couch.
Why does it have to be beautiful?
No one holds you after your fantasies of the Passion.
There's no blood in your bedsheets from the stigmata you didn't get.
No one is watching.
So why does it have to be beautiful?
You, in pain, are no closer to god than
You, in the drive thru or
You, checking your email or
You, holding your own hand.
November to August
i know that i go on and on about stupid little things and i hope it isn't too much. but if i don't talk
about it i'll either melt or explode and i don't want anyone to have to clean up any more of my messes.
so i hope it's alright that i'm doing this here, and i'm sorry if it bothers you.
i'm always apologizing for something.
and while we're on the subject, i'm sorry, but i think i'm going a little stale, a little flat.
fading from technicolor to greyscale and i'm sorry for that too.
i know how you hate to be bored.
i know how this looks, but in spite of it, i swear i'm trying.
some days, i'll do things that used to mean something and they aren't enough.
i feel sort of blank.
i'm not sure if it's because what was there isn’t anymore, or if there maybe wasn’t anything to begin with.
either way, something's missing.
something's coming apart.
it's in the time between midnight and sunrise that i feel my best: a little unreal, a little far away.
and i'll think, like everyone does, about my place in the world. in my home, in my bed.
(here i could prattle on about something something optimistic nihilism, something something microcosm of a macrocosm, but it's really not that deep.)
i'm really just some pretentious pseudo-intellectual well of a being, waiting to be filled up.
wished on.
seen.
please, let me be seen.
let me love, and let it be awkward and odd and a little too tall to kiss just right.
let it be safe.
i know how desperate it sounds but i'm boiling over with love and there's no one i can serve it to the way i want.
but the table's set, the porch light is on, and the dogs have learned they don't always need to bark when new folks step inside.
i know how desperate it sounds but i changed the sheets this morning.
i was up all night.
i saw the light slip through the slats in the blinds like it does every time the sun comes up.
please don't tell anyone, but sometimes i let myself think about -
well.
it's when i think about the little things that i find my color coming back, if only for a second.
the words you paint into me, the letters we write, the all nighters and the way you think about things,
that sweater you held onto for who knows how long
until you handed it to me in the cemetery chill.
i can't stand it, the getting close.
i never know what to do with my hands.
Ryan / Elle is an eighteen year old trans student from central California. They have been writing for as long as they can remember, and his most recent work has centered around overarching topics of gender, love, shame, and the many facets of individual identity. More of his writing can be found on instagram @transangelicism.