sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.
- m.f.