we drank polluted air from dying lungs

we drank polluted air from dying lungs our church wasn’t like most our gods weren’t either our altar was the convention center next to an adult mega store on highway 31 we worshipped the cracking feet of two alcoholics who could inhale and exhale cotton candy tobacco in a manner that made us less sad to live where we did because the clouds they made provided shade for our failed dreams and asphalt to suffocate our blemishes because the rot they experienced was more than what we did we found salvation in their sadness because it seemed greater than ours even though sometimes they appeared happy or indifferent which was better than happy their crucifix wasn’t made of wood and the nails propping their corpses were the empty adoration we pounded into their contracting lungs when we watched and hoped they would live forever and we prayed that some day we’d die like them with the same wounds a spectacle and nothing else