prentiss bay, youth retreat in winter (and other myths)

when we put our (small) hands 

on our classmate’s chest and prayed for her

open heart surgery months away 

everyone’s eyes were closed but mine,

i know because i checked. maybe that’s 

why she still had to go under the knife 

(although we knew it was inevitable, right?)

don’t get me wrong, i wished for it with all

my heart, that the hole in hers would close 

somehow, but i guess my soul just wasn’t 

in it. i was looking out the windows, 

daylight reflecting off the snow stronger 

than the moon, like staring right into the 

fluorescent ceiling lights. then watching the 

ancient red library carpet, surrounded

by questions, dusty on shelves, and 

i thought for the first time, 

what am i doing here? 

kneeling on that same carpet

in a different font, and a girl near me 

accepted jesus as her lord and savior.

i had spent months double-praying with

no reply, and i started running for the train

hearing the thundering red line above me 

while i sprint up those hard steps to heaven, 

the whole structure of the thing trembling, 

please lord, don’t leave me behind again 

so i said i accepted him too, a man who 

hasn’t spoken to me to this day. 

loneliness has a texture to it: 

old church floors and youth

group couches that probably 

fucked up our backs a little bit. 

learning about the rapture after school,

the world will be a great wildfire, 

with believers sheltered by the strongest 

gems and metals, while all others, 

sheltered with straw and twigs, 

incinerate into nothing. i tuned 

out the preacher’s voice and looked 

at my arm, picturing the bonfire we 

had outside the night before, ashes 

escaping and calling themselves stars, 

and the flame jumped in the palm 

of my hand and my skin caught like 

paper, peeling from my bones, the edges

charring black. midnight was the color 

of dusk with the blaze, and the preacher 

saw me standing in savannah stretching 

between horizons from his house of sapphire, 

and i asked to be let in. a smile had its 

crochet hook on the edge of his mouth, trying

to pull his pity out of place, and he said 

he hated my sin.