I Confess My Sins With A Sneer And No Disgust

Last week I read as part of a reading dubbed The Holiday Hangover. Before the bands readers were to converge on the end of the holiday season with might and fury and look back at holiday season with a vengeful eye. The piece I read was one for the assholes and embracers of laughing at darkness. 

I felt I needed to soften the crowd for my big bummer, so I confessed that my holidays are doomed as the sins I have done in the gauge of the seasons have left me cursed.

These are my four trespasses 

1. Vengeance Against a Plush But Mechanical Holiday Idol is Still Vengeance.  

There was a singing reindeer, my mothers mantle piece for the front door. As you came close enough to see the felt eyes it began to howl in harmonic squeals of holiday songs.

I gutted it. I chopped its head off, ran it over with a skateboard, and lit it on fire.

I told my mother local kids stole it when she gasped at its absence. For three years she would buy another—QVC bomb dropped shipping—and each year I blamed the neighborhood kids when it disappeared.

One year I clutched to fabricated details that one of my fiends stole it. I was told I could never see him again, which was fine. I stole video games each time I left his house. He was catching on.  

2. My Oath: If a Church Won’t Nail it Down I Will Steal it.

There’s more to be done with a van than spreading legs apart in the open spaces of the back. I stole a pew from a church, sold it to a second hand store (never once wanting to know why they needed a pew), and spent the money on punk rock entities and trinkets not worth a thought when I turned eighteen.  

3. Sexual Baptism

I got an erection during baptism. A nice one. I gave it a quick tap when I was shoved under water. I emerged, soaking wet with clenching clothes and my hands folded below my waist — from a distance I was in a reverent pose to a holy act. None of this had to do with the priest but more with being a kid full of bungling hard-on. In all theological circles and discussions arousal during the symbolic deed of being reborn has a canceling effect.  

4. Beloved Violence  

My first memory of my mother is of her punching a donkey, knocking it out. It was just there, spinning eyes and flattened ears, unconscious and dripping spit on a mountains trail. Not sure if this ties into Christmas but it’s my fondest memory of my mother, and I’m sure placing this as a cherished moment makes baby Jesus, the drumming child, and at least one smelly, camel ridden sore wise men ask when my suffering will begin.


I Confess My Sins With A Sneer And No Disgust

Last week I read as part of a reading dubbed The Holiday Hangover. Before the bands readers were to converge on the end of the holiday season with might and fury and look back at holiday season with a vengeful eye. The piece I read was one for the assholes and embracers of laughing at darkness. 

I felt I needed to soften the crowd for my big bummer, so I confessed that my holidays are doomed as the sins I have done in the gauge of the seasons have left me cursed.

These are my four trespasses 

1. Vengeance Against a Plush But Mechanical Holiday Idol is Still Vengeance.  

There was a singing reindeer, my mothers mantle piece for the front door. As you came close enough to see the felt eyes it began to howl in harmonic squeals of holiday songs.

I gutted it. I chopped its head off, ran it over with a skateboard, and lit it on fire.

I told my mother local kids stole it when she gasped at its absence. For three years she would buy another—QVC bomb dropped shipping—and each year I blamed the neighborhood kids when it disappeared.

One year I clutched to fabricated details that one of my fiends stole it. I was told I could never see him again, which was fine. I stole video games each time I left his house. He was catching on.  

2. My Oath: If a Church Won’t Nail it Down I Will Steal it.

There’s more to be done with a van than spreading legs apart in the open spaces of the back. I stole a pew from a church, sold it to a second hand store (never once wanting to know why they needed a pew), and spent the money on punk rock entities and trinkets not worth a thought when I turned eighteen.  

3. Sexual Baptism

I got an erection during baptism. A nice one. I gave it a quick tap when I was shoved under water. I emerged, soaking wet with clenching clothes and my hands folded below my waist — from a distance I was in a reverent pose to a holy act. None of this had to do with the priest but more with being a kid full of bungling hard-on. In all theological circles and discussions arousal during the symbolic deed of being reborn has a canceling effect.  

4. Beloved Violence  

My first memory of my mother is of her punching a donkey, knocking it out. It was just there, spinning eyes and flattened ears, unconscious and dripping spit on a mountains trail. Not sure if this ties into Christmas but it’s my fondest memory of my mother, and I’m sure placing this as a cherished moment makes baby Jesus, the drumming child, and at least one smelly, camel ridden sore wise men ask when my suffering will begin.


Posted 1 month ago 1 note

Notes:

  1. wordsforguns posted this

About:

Matt DeBenedictis is a freelance music journalist and blogger. Generally Matt wraps and coils words around the more abrasive sides of music—the ones where missed beats are deemed permissible and the frowned upon mistake is to sound like the record live. Matt's first ever concert was in the bottom of a church, a carpeted basement decorated with punch stains and pictures of a lord in different saving poses. A hardcore band and a speed metal band played. It was a shaved hair vs. permed long hair kind of night. Currently Matt is a freelance writer for Noisecreep.

Matt's fiction and literary work has been featured in journals like Lamination Colony, decomP, The Ampersand Review, and Thrist for Fire. A review once called his now out of print Chapbook A Perfect Disgrace “A Drunkin' mix of Bukowski and Palahniuk”. At the time Matt had never read a single line of Charles Bukowski aside from the occasional references glued in bridges of songs. "That story was the result of me leaving the church and finally coming to a place of celebration over not being a pastor anymore,” Matt said. “Though I’m not sure how a story that began from the idea of not being able to feel yourself masturbate connects to that part of my life, but it does."

The love of stories and words for Matt came not from a big library of books but from bars, the pulpit, and stand up comedy. Not being the most social child Matt spent lots of hours just watching TV, and what fascinated him the most in the solitude of his early years were stand up comedians. "Stand up comedians put days, months, and years into what can be a one minute joke and that simple joke can speak two books full of philosophy and years of discontent with the world," Matt explained quite excited by the topic. When Matt used to be on the road, within the realms of music and as a touring pastor—which did include being a "character" on the reality show One Punk Under God that aired on The Sundance Channel—he created stories to tell people in order to break odd silences between people who barely knew each other. He would practice these stories in voice and by pen making sure the rhythm was strong and the words forming were cut clean, dark, and unforgiving. He wanted the stories to be retold. While on these tours and trips Matt was introduced to books and works that inspired him to begin writing more.

Matt Debenedictis lives in Atlanta, GA with his partner, three small dogs, and a painting of a monster eating a mountain.

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