Shayana Foroutan - on a trip to rome, my sister’s friend says i seem like i’d hate christianity

Shayana Foroutan’s gritty and tangible “on a trip to rome, my sister’s friend says i seem like i’d hate christianity” pulls no punches. This poem presents a frail and human-like Jesus of Nazareth, a Jesus in pain, bleeding from his wounds on the cross in Jerusalem, a Jesus struggling with feeling betrayed by God the Father as the hot sun beat down upon his ruin of flesh. “My work is focused on offering human-like empathy toward religious figures: in this case, Jesus,” Shayana told The Dewdrop. “I focus on the human sensory experience that these figures likely experienced in the treacherous circumstances they faced.”

on a trip to rome, my sister’s friend says i seem like i’d hate christianity

somewhere in rome,
they have the steps
that jesus walked up
to his own crucifixion—
cross sinking into an imprint
on his shoulder skin—

his frail, trembling body
waiting to be drenched
by the unforgiving sun
of his own father,
which calloused the desert
floor he labored across.

this sun we call ours,
and beautiful, like it is not
the same sun jesus hung
so gracefully under

stark naked
nails woven

between his finger bones
and toes, weeping, like all
the paintings we saw
together in roman churches

weeping, quietly like we did
as we respectfully tried to
make out the blood that dripped
out the wound on his ribs
and stained those stairs,
so we could kneel on them,

repenting &
daydreaming.

it’s not that
i hate christianity.

it is simply that I’d feel
betrayed, if, hanging
on a cross, my dad
pointed a bleach-hot sun
onto my shrouded face.