exorcisms

yesterday, home early from work and needing to be quiet and relax and turn off my brain for awhile i turned on the tv to find dr phil talking to an exorcist while a barrage of possessed people flickered in the background. and the rev/dr/psychoanalyst talked candidly about the devil, evil spirits, demons and how you can spot them looking back and you out of the eyes of their victims, windows to the soul all dirty. and he talked about how his work, ridding people of the evil within them with loud words and a bible is a companion to mental health workers, to medicine, to therapy. and i wonder how can any of us do without him then, how can any of us stand before him completely pure, completely clean, windows smudge free? and how can any of us determine what are spirits, whether or not "negative energy" is in fact spirits revenging spirits, the bad one taking hold?

the bad one implies that there is a good one, a good one that is stronger but still so susceptible to these dark things, these rain clouds that can take over, that can cover and hide and wound so deeply so neatly that only the eyes can see.

i have a purpose and it is not to sit unmoving it is not to stand unspeaking it is not to breathe unthinking about the when the how the why

i have a purpose and it is not to count steps and lines and words and pennies it is not to wait for rain wait for sun wait for meetings wait for 5pm to come

i have a purpose and it is not to forget where i came from it is not to remember the time when i when you when things were all ripped and torn it is not blank pages

i have a purpose and it is not to empty or fill a room it is not all bright all dark no inbetween it is not cutting my hair and suddenly its new its not about everything being shiny

i have a purpose and it is not to moan in the laughing it is not to break apart at the seams of double-stitching

There are things, she said, that can't be straightened out. They have to be pulled and wrenched and torn. And maybe just stay muddled up. Or pushed out of sight and left where they are. You can't tidy up people they way you can tidy up a room, she said. They're too narrow or too big. And even rooms, she said, don't take long to get untidy again.

-Sheila Watson The Double Hook, p. 74