Baptism

I can’t tell you how to love.
I can’t tell you how to make your eyes soft around the edges
when you look out.

I can’t make you slow down; I can’t make you breathe
if you don’t want to—but really,

I'm thinking to myself at this point:

on a Sunny day
I'd like take you by the face,
my palms hard against your temples—God—
my fingernails digging in, and very reasonably flex— 

forcing—forcing—forcing

your consciousness down and further down to the muddy waters
fermenting beneath the shelter you have built.

I promise

I will bring you down and drown you in the filth
of your own backyard.