I Am Not Afraid

I am not afraid, ze said, of the non-believer within me.
No delight at the pain of my enemies
No tears for any friends I have lost.
You are not alone, I said.
It is a trial to keep my belief suspended.
I leave my violin unattended in a cab or a restaurant.
And then when ze started to sing,
Nobody could've called them crazy.
Open chord forever unchanging.
Holy eternal drone.

I'll never have any children,
I'd bear them and eat them, my children.
I'm gonna change my body
In the light and the shadow of suspicion.
I am no longer afraid.
The truth doesn't terrify us, terrify us.
My salvation is found in discipline, in discipline.

I haven't had a smoke in years
But I will catch a drag if you are smoking.
They told me to chew on a toothpick.
They told me to take a deep breath.
What is better is to punch a wall,
To bin the boxes of your old love letters,
To be impassive to the words that could save you,
To need to see the world as ash.

And I'll never have any children,
I would bear them and confuse them, my children.
And I'm not at all afraid of changing
But I don't know what good it would do me.
I am no longer afraid.
The truth doesn't terrify us, terrify us.
My salvation is found in discipline, in discipline.