the stoning - Kylie Henderson
poetry ☆
poetry ☆
lamb, it’s here where
they threw the first stone:
do you renounce me?
renounce all of my works
and empty show?
your skin shone brightly
in the lamp-light,
heretical in its filigree–
oh how i had never asked
for this, for you and your
cyclical seduction and
draconian speech,
my mind goes numb
when your lips go down,
on me, brass digging
into my wrists,
touching me in ways
so anachronistic i may just
bleed out on this bed,
beg to be christened
on your skin.
faith misplaced and
put inside of you,
disguised as the altar–
sycophantic in nature but
sweet on my tongue.
take the glass and
break it, over my head,
use the shards to
cut my throat,
taste me in a way
more akin to faith,
drink me as a sacrament,
and i’ll lick what’s left
from your teeth,
trace your scars and
purify them upon my
fingertips–
it’s here where you’ll
become reborn
in a woman’s vision,
crucified upon
my very being,
my incessant pleasure
traded instead for
your full surrender.
my body molding yours
from flesh to metamorphic,
veins still palpable
in your new exterior.
it is upon your slate
where i’ll seek my
redemption, take the
pilgrimage from this
life into the after–
life leaving my body
as the stone strikes–
bludgeoning me
into an obedience
that one more hallowed
than i may have found a revival,
but ruination laments
from my autonomy, so
in the male gaze
of sanctity, i’ll impale
myself on the sword
of salvation, curse what they
deem as orthodox
and what i deem as
savagery, but all
still created in the light
of a god,
and in this light
i’ll drink from
the river of my blood
and hope i’ll be deemed
more worthy in death.
Kylie Henderson is a poet and student from Iowa City, Iowa studying English Publishing and Business Marketing at the University of Iowa. She co-founded Venus Magazine, a Romance literary magazine on campus, and is the PR Director for New Moon Magazine. After graduating in May, she hopes to work in book publishing and continue to write in her free time. You can find her on Instagram @renkyliee and TikTok @renkyliee!
