Deliverance from the Tenth House

by Victoria Mbabazi

dear god I was looking for a solution
but I’ve learned a house that exists on bones only haunts
I know you did not expect a celebration in your absence
but I couldn’t help it you died I start the applause
you thought to deliver me from evil and I sank into it

I found what loves me underwater
I became light on the dark side of the moon
you thought chaos would lead me to heaven
I saw your wrath and ran from it no god I don’t do love by myself
no I became a ghost and hoped it’d lead me to you

but those who love me brought me back to life
and those who love me don’t ask when you’ll save me
all my dreams of paradise are the hell you described
and all my dreams come true no I can no longer beg you to love me
if I don’t know what it is to love you no I am done begging to love
no the apocalypse is all or nothing thinking isn’t that something
I find love you cave with the house but I don’t wish to rebuild it
if I have to save you for the house to stand then I’ll leave it in ashes

I can’t sacrifice myself there is no authority if what’s left is worship
and if I have to worship to love than I’d rather be loveless
but no the rapture doesn’t find me looking for a saviour no
I won’t be on my knees when I pray you don’t answer
the kingdom was made with bloodied hands
I won’t be saved in isolation no if I have to be swallowed by sky
to go to heaven I’d rather die underwater

no deliver me from obligation no deliver me into freedom no
deliver me into a love that isn’t Holy dear god
I learned to love and no you don’t do it no I learned to love
and no I do it I didn’t find love in the kingdom you left for me
no I know you don’t love me because I found it no I know love
because of me I keep the tenth house in ruins I let your demons
haunt the space and when I invite them to dinner I sit at the head
of a table of ashes and when we start our feast I know we’ll end full

Victoria Mbabazi

Victoria Mbabazi’s work can be found in several literary magazines. chapbook is available with Anstruther Press and FLIP is available with knife | fork | book. Their full-length collection, The Siren in the Twelfth House, is coming out in Fall 2024 with Palimpsest Press. They’re currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York.