Nico in Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1967).

Bless us, St. Nico, we who need a mirror when no one else on earth understands. Save us, your flock, from threats of dreaded normalcy. Especially faggots like me – reared in the deep, rural south, suffering through adolescence starved for a savior anti-Madonna fierce enough to hold her own. We once were lost but your evening of light helped us see. 

Give us strength these days to confront unforgotten failures on our own. Your mercy doesn’t wash away the sins but instead lends credence and visibility to our disgrace. Through no intention of your own but because of who you were then, are now and will forever be, you are canonized as a patron saint to jilted lovers, downtrodden vagabonds, misunderstood, unwitting geniuses, the woman underestimated by men of art and industry. You remain many things for many people, yes, again, even an impetuous, lowly faggot like me, and so many more who find themselves on the other side of popular prayer. 

Never one to be eclipsed or upstaged by so many men with half your divinity and faculties, you showed us a path to perpetual salvation. And though the road leading to the lawns of dawn be paved with the best intentions that trick the feet with false feelings of comfort and success, your gospel grants the reassuring guidance necessary to leave overdrawn caresses as we continue our pilgrimage through this travesty called life.

And through thorough examination of your documented life journey, we find that you had faults of your own, all too common prejudices of your day and age. You, too were human. Too late to forgive and too grievous to forget. We address your own sins to show how failures of flesh and mind exist even in the holiest of people. Base level skin and bone shells are capable of only so much. With this recognition we more easily see our own faults and become grateful for what life we have left to correct our mistakes and right our wrongs. We add a prayer here for you, St. Nico, that you have or will realize and reckon with these trespasses. 

Your art, Elysian. Your influence, limited but crucial for us who know…we, the innocent and vain. We’ve got the gold and with this transmutation we now have a way to wrap our troubles in dreams. May our holy headphones make us mediums for your message of insouciant misery, your promises of ways around instead of directly through adversity with little confrontation. 

We close this prayer to thee, Teutonic saint of uncompromising individuality, with waves of gratitude lapping at your detached, disinterested and icy shore. You come into our lives when we need you most. You offer salvation in the form of an unfeeling monotone that warms when we recognize a shared__________________. You imbue us with the power to suffer, resilient and beautiful, any hardship the world throws our way. You point us in the truest direction, we see and go wherever your gaunt fingers command. All this and much more which we will never be truly worthy. You fell on accident and hemorrhaged for our sins. We know this and we hate ourselves for this interpretation. Solace comes when we listen to your songs. Forgiveness comes when we sing along as if these hymns have the power to restore. Transcendence comes when your droning voice overshadows our own and lifts us up with you in heaven before sending us crashing back down to reconvene our suffering here on earth. But highly blessed, strengthened and remade by your redeeming grace. 

And the people said: My Heart Is Empty

Jarrod Campbell is a writer living in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. His fiction, essays, poetry, non-fiction and reviews have appeared in print and online with Heavy Feather Review, Northwest Review, Boner World (Berlin), Modern Literature, and more. A collection of short stories, The Reason I’m Here, (Stalking Horse Press, June 2023) was named an anticipated LGBTQIA+ read by Lambda Literary the month of its release.