God Lives in My Eros

A poem on the female body as scripture, pleasure as devotion, and eros as a doorway to the divine.

you cannot convince me
that kneeling at a church pew
has brought me closer to god
than kneeling before the man i love
mouth open like prayer
devotion dripping down my chin

you cannot tell me
that scripture knows more about divinity
than my own body
this body that feels
bleeds
aches
opens
this body that has always been oracle

you cannot tell me holiness lives in covering myself
when i have felt god most intimately
bare-skinned in cold creek water
hips kissed by the current
sunlight turning my wet body
into something worth worshipping

you cannot tell me
that prayer must begin with
“our heavenly father”

sometimes prayer sounds like music vibrating through my chest
like striking a match at midnight
like tobacco smoke curling from parted lips
like inhaling deeply enough
to remember i belong to something ancient
something fierce
something unbearably tender

and maybe that’s what terrifies people most
that women might find god
without needing permission first

in their arousal
in their eros
in the sacred pulse between their legs
not needing a man to touch holiness into them
but finding god through their own pleasure first

god aches for your fullness
for your ripeness
for the soft split-open sweetness of you
like a peach dripping in late summer

for you to surrender completely
to sensation
to beauty
to earthly delights

after all
why would god create a world this lush
if not for you to taste it fully, my love