Arson

 

 

I told you I was well

And you comforted me

By way of digestives,

Tea and lip service

 

I told you I was off

My medication

And you asked me

No relevant questions

Or anything about my care

Or well being

 

You said for the Church’s own

Personal satisfaction, clarification

And most importantly, liable damage limitation

A short ceremony, preformed in my flat

By clergy, of your choosing

Was the way it’s done in the SDA

 

All I had to do was lay back

Relax and give a signature of consent

 

Faith healing I think you called it

In haste I signed on the dotted line

 

Virgin olive oil, Tesco’s finest

Was rubbed into the creases

Of my manic forehead

And a brief prayer was recited

In my honour and in Jesus’ name

 

My lack of psychological insight

And my trusting rose tinted nature

Told me it was so, all done and dusted

 

And the inflated price of the olive oil

And the hassle I went through to get it

Was the rubber stamp, the seal my mind needed

To believe the new journey, of imposed freedom in Christ

And equally transforming, the suggested

Liberation from A life time on antipsychotics

And regular diabetes checks

Was about to begin

 

You all reassured me with the hand

Shake of a dentist and palms sweaty

Wet like a fish just out of water

 

The front door about to shut, and in unison,

A pious “God bless you,” Trailed after you,

Well to do proselyte makers in the making

A job well done, faith healers extraordinaire

On par with the likes of Benny Hinn

But he’s fake because he’s a Sunday worshiper

That’s what you told me anyway

But the Sunday churches say what about the great disappointment in 1844

And what about the massacare in Waco Texas

Was David Koresh really the messiah? Do the SDA really know?

 

Selah

 

You were gone, into the frost of the night

Leaving me elated but all alone

Hot and salivating, right there in

The living room of my district heated flat

 

I didn’t sleep that night

For the 82nd night in a row

You see, I’d been counting

The days by way of

Burnt out match sticks

And empty packets of low tar drum

 

My thoughts raced, chased

A demented dragon through my synapses

Feeding my dopamine starved brain

With nothing but sweet nothings a sugar coated

Placebo, the guise of your very last Rollo

An empty packet of promises, of hope, change and a new reality

 

I held out all night, frantic I searched

My scriptures. Line upon line

Verse by verse

Precept upon precept

Just like I always did

 

Well that’s what the good

Book says how to do it

That’s how it works

 

Even for the cursed

 

I prayed fervently

But I didn’t feel like a righteous man

So my faith, what is faith?

Where’s your faith son? Maintain

 

“Be still, and know I’m God,”

 

And after all that, just stand.

 

I was wavering, double minded,

Lack of results, shaken to the core in all my plans

 

My faith losing ground, a heathen

An outcast, a schizophrenic, what’s next

There’s no more I can stand

 

A mirage in the desert, a nomad,

No family, no friends

Just miles and miles of sand.

And making roll ups from dog ends

What a pitiful, pitiful man

 

A reject, a recluse, need water

I’m dizzy, I thirst, parched, I’m weary

I’m faint, A faith no different from

An atheist in a plentiful land

 

I try to maintain focus

My pupils dilate to the size

Of oversized mushrooms

Pulsating in syncopation

To the beat of my weak rapid heart 

 

I remain conscious

But unstable

 

Then finally a mist appears 

A magic carpet hovering

Over the shrubs in the pocket park

 

Through steamy windows,

I watch the darkness lift

A new day, a new dawn the herald of a new start,

 

I can see clearly now the tobaccos all gone

I was all prayed out, and my Bible

Had been rabidly read,

But I can’t remember a thing

 

Then I broke into the most violent of cold sweats

The signs of relapse, the voices

Mounting their final and most ferocious attack

 

I wasn’t healed, I wasn’t well, you told me

My miracle was on the way,

 

“Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning!”

 

That’s what the song says

 

Sweat poured out from me worse than when

I ate a whole pot full of Aunt Veda’s seriously dangerous

Hot pepper sauce Curry. And for real, it did exactly

What it said on the label, Jam downs hottest,

Written in psychedelic colours stuck menacingly there on the tin

 

This was different though I was drenched

The colour of my favourite top

Turned from bright red to almost black

 

And then it happened.

And that was all the liquid I had

To put out the flames,

The fire, that the devil

And his demons started

 

I swear

 

Please believe me

 

It’s all true.

 

Your honour.

 

I plead mercy!!