{"id":1197,"date":"2019-11-20T00:02:27","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T05:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2019-11-20T00:03:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T05:03:51","slug":"ashes-to-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/2019\/11\/20\/ashes-to-ashes\/","title":{"rendered":"ASHES TO ASHES"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>A Prose Poem by\u00a0Mackenzie Arnold<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\u201cBeloved,\u201d he spoke, with eyes that looked to me and then to the black bible open in his hands so that he could taste the word of God in his mouth again. \u201cI urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. First Peter. Chapter Two. Verse Eleven.\u201d He had to part his jaw like a gasp, teeth grazing bottom lip, tongue rolling to form the words, \u201cpassions of the flesh.\u201d I thought they sounded so romantic until it was my flesh that he wanted.<\/p>\n

Afterwards I burned my own bible, and I stayed to watch the ashes stir until I realized that they must have done the same at the end of all the witch trials. The fire was already out, but tears fell from my eyes anyways and so I cried in bitter irony. I imagined they were holy water\u2014the tears\u2014and as they ran down my cheeks I parted my lips so that they could wash his hypocrisy from my tongue.<\/p>\n

I realized too late that it was not God I wanted to burn, but the one who liked the taste of God\u2019s words in his mouth\u2014if only to trick himself into thinking that he was\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Divine.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/span><\/p>\n

I never thought much about religion as a child. Despite growing up just outside of Dallas, Texas, where mega-churches and celebrity pastors reign supreme, I remained largely untouched by the dogma of these institutions because my family simply didn\u2019t go to church. When I began high school at a private Christian academy though, I was suddenly plunged into a very suffocating environment that made it very apparent that my existence as a girl, and any form of feminine sexuality, was wrong.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote this prose poem in hindsight, looking back on my experiences in a place that was supposed to educate me, and yet insisted upon waging war on my body.\u00a0In my poem, the emphasis is on the hypocrisy of the male figures I encountered during that time, and how confusing it was to be both punished and desired for my body\u2014of which both outcomes were somehow my fault, and because of which it was often hard to distinguish between the two in the moment. These experiences led me to hate religion and any type of spirituality in general, and it\u2019s taken me a long time to realize that it\u2019s not these beliefs that are toxic, but some of the people that practice them. I now find it gratifying to be able to use spirituality and what I suppose you could call religion, which was so often used to shrink me, as a way to empower myself\u2014especially as a woman.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Prose Poem by\u00a0Mackenzie Arnold \u201cBeloved,\u201d he spoke, with eyes that looked to me and then to the black bible open in his hands so that he could taste the word of God in his mouth again. \u201cI urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war … Continue reading ASHES TO ASHES<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7072,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,100,107],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7072"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}