The New Testament

Have you heard? Have you heard the news? My womb is swollen with child. It’s only a matter of time till I unravel, till my water breaks and the birthing begins. I’m pregnant, ripe, fertile. My face has a peculiar glow.  I’m eating for two. It’s beginning to show. Its been three months now, just a few more left to go.

Everywhere I roam, on buses, trains or planes, they make space for me, they tell me what to do in cases of emergency. They can smell the words spewing from my body, they can sense the mystery, this odd mixture of irony and metaphor, poetry and prose.

Will you stand by and watch while I dilate? While I sweat and bleed, while I shout out loud so the whole world hears of my labour pains?

I am a leap of faith.

Can you put all doubt to rest and believe in me? Can you quell your suspicions and learn to love my core? Can you cease all your clever reasoning and your constant need for logic and put your trust in my fluttering, irrational heart?

I, too, can work miracles. I, too, can still the waters, multiply fish and loaves, transform bread and wine to flesh and blood.

Come smell me. Come watch me burn. I promise to intoxicate, inebriate… woo you with my flames.