Your Soul by Anna Ruiz

I strip for both God and Man
layers and layers of Woman
endless names and voices come together
in one sweet prayer to your Beloved

Yet you would imprison me in your dark
shadows of fear, and blame me for your wicked
desire, hiding me behind a walking shroud.

I am Eve
I am Isis
I am Sophia
I am Diana
I am the Goddess you will kill, and kill for
I am Veronica
I am Solome
I am Rasa
I am Tania
I am Monica
I am Mary Magdalene
I am Patricia
I am an apostle of Christ
I am Buddha's emptiness
and Buddha's desire
I am Naga Moon
I am Raven Wing
I am Mazie
I am Hedi
I am Gill
I am Joyce
I am Josie
I am Joni
I am every name
I am a Lover of all Ways,
I write myself in setting suns and rising moons,
I am the artistic free hand of life,
an asteroid, a comet's tail, a dragon melting in the scales
of a fish called Wanda,
I am the eternal Spring returning in a Robin's breast
I am a crisis of identity in an Anna-Song
I am a Melody of every form and Sound
I am your imprisoned Faith behind
open door and
open windows
I Am Woman
I am bound feet and earth songs on moccasins
I am dark-lashed and light-eyed,
I am the texture
the feel
the softness of skin
I ride across your destiny on winged feet,
I am words that duel with you, sharp incisions,
I am the sacrifice you have made ready,
an altar to a nameless God
or a God of Susan,
I am your sister, mother or daughter, that stranger across
a lonely room,
the beggar for your Love
cast out into another
cruel night
Unknown
to the agony of your serpentine want:
to embrace ecstasy,
in your all-consuming desire,
I am the garbage decay of all life and the
residual emptiness
left behind,
like Lot's wife,
sea and salt memories, a burning pillar
of fire, wafting a feather plume,
white and pure,

I am that 500-pound gorilla sitting on your chest,
I am the thorn that removes the thorn from your
Lion's paw,
I am a gentle wind that rolls away the stone
guarding
your Heart of Hearts.

An excerpt from the upcoming Girl God Anthology: Jesus, Mohammad and The Goddess.