Sacrament

So you don’t confess
Your pain and sorrow
To the priest anymore

You don’t bow
To the cross
Take what’s given
As holy — as penance

You don’t think demons inhabit you
Don’t ask for exorcism
Don’t believe in divine laws —
Scriptures
Heavens
And hells

Do you now go
To health and wellbeing
Centres
For healing

To your doctor instead —
Strip before him
Be prodded, poked and penetrated
Peeled open and fed through machines
To find foreign bodies, tumours, diseases —
And cut them out

Do you now ask him
What’s right
And what’s wrong —
What to eat
How much and when
What to drink —
And when

Do you now
Tell him your fears, desires
Hopes, dreams, feelings —
So he can sort them out
In neat little
Scientific labels — badges
From the latest edition
Always updating and changing
To tell you what’s healthy — good—
And what’s sick

The DSM and the ICD —
The proper Good Books —
You can wear
And forget what you were before

The body of Christ
In pills, capsules
Sprays and patches
On the skin, through every orifice —
For your fears, sadness
Desire, and dread

Not confession chamber
But couch —
With your own therapist
Just lie down, spill it all out
Just talk —
To your scientific listener
Trained, confidential —
Not clergy from seminary
But a proper one —
A pro

Don’t confess —
Share, show and lay
It all on the altar
Not of the divine
But before
Your own
Healthcare professional

He, she, it —
Will take it all, rinse it
Purify it
And put it back
In its proper place —
In you

Don’t be called a sinner
And be damned to hell —
Be called an addict
Schizophrenic, cancerous
Autistic, depressed
Bipolar —
And psychopath instead

And be put in padded cells
Locked wards and homes —
For whatever deviance
Possesses you —
For your safety

Don’t take the sacred wafer
And wine — don’t be exorcised
Take pills for life
Have pipes and tubes stuck through
Every single hole
And every place possible

Don’t fight your demons —
Live battling your diseases
Until you die
Keep suffering
Keep bowing —
Just not to the priest

Don’t see yourself
Through the lens of religion
See yourself —
Your body, mind, behaviour —
Through microscopes
The lenses, veils
And minds
Filled with all the knowledge
Of what’s right
And what’s wrong

Of your new clergy
Your new priest
Your doctor —

On the altar of
Science