21st Century Religion

moralistic braying
catches me by surprise
whips my head back,
singes my hair.
I duck the spittle, spraying
like napalm,
seeking out my
every biological
particle –
search
and
destroy –
burning flesh,
searing nerve-
endings.

Silence.

No reprieve.
Reload. Click.
And words
ricochet off walls
pummel my body
like so many rubber bullets
not wounding per se
but leaving bruises
the size of grapefruit
swelling and purpling
until the crosshairs
never leave the
bull’s eye
of my soul.

pinched voice
strident,
and preaching,
pushing me down
down
down
into the smallest
Insignificant
fragment
of fragility,
skittering under the edge
of anonymity