Idol Poem by Tara Teeling

Rock slave,
electric choirboy,
you were never a god.

A floater, a flutterer
and a tongue-lashing flagellator,
you blistered me with
hot, rancid prose
and I moved with you,
even when you didn’t
anymore.

I didn’t want you to be human,
to drip sweat, or cry.
You kept your humanity bound
in the ethereal limits of leather,
with the poetry and the blood,
knowing that your power
was sugar-glass fragile.

Cracks, fissures, and saltwater tears
would bring it all down,
powdering us all, leaving us
covered with the ash
of a burned-out idol.

Religion needs its disciples
in order to be heard.

Swinging on your hymns,
tarnished by your varnish,
the wild-eyed children
made you the most supreme
of all the believers.
The bottle of liquid glitter-fiction
somehow filled you up,
with easy faith and
watered-down benedictions.

But, you fell.

Your art
owed its power to
starry-eyed worshippers,
creating you,
exposing the artifice
of your cabalistic power.

Shame on you, sugar,
for believing in me,
and for buying my praises
which have cost you more
than you could ever afford.

The pageantry, the words,
and the glint
of steel-cool sainthood
meant more to you,
than it ever did to me.