"Will you pray with me"
All heads bowed and all eyes shut
But I did not close my eyes
So I wouldn't miss the sun slipping over the horizon to nestle under a bed of deep pink and purple blankets
More of a glimpse of the divine than anyone else saw in that moment
All of them focused on the blank dark screens behind their eyelids
Searching for a God that was right before my eyes

I grab the wrinkled edge of time
And pull off it's mask
Reaching in to grasp at all the little pieces of him that have been scattered by the wind
Pleading to give him back to me
"He could save you,"
I say to no one.
I shout but no one hears,
They look at us but close their ears
It's too late now
He's long gone
Reduced to the ashes of the cigarettes he used to burn
"He could've saved you," I say
But it's a little too late

"...to release the captives and to set the oppressed free!"
These were the only words I caught from the booming preacher up front,
and I suddenly imagined myself being freed.
Undoing the chains and unlocking my cage;
and then, turning to him with tears in my eyes, I kiss his cheek and float away-
slowly turning into ashes as her fingers trace a cross on my forehead
"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

This is what I've been failing to see for the entirety of my existence-
I am nothing more than a consciousness trapped in a painting,
doomed to remain motionless;
staring at the enormous window
that I had never really seen before
for an eternity.
And my "life"?
Nothing but a dream.

"Dear Mr. Mouse,
I understand that you're just trying to keep warm, and you're welcome to stay under the couch. But please refrain from coming into Daniels room or running under my feet when I'm in the house. Thank you. Amen."
"Did you just "amen" the mouse?"
"Yes. I have a very pantheistic view of the world, therefore the mouse is an extension of God and it makes perfect sense that I would end with "Amen.""
"What if the mouse is an atheist?"
"Well then maybe he'll still be flattered that I would think so highly of him."
"Or maybe you'll have ****** him off."
I laid awake in bed until the early hours of the morning, and every sound I heard that night was the pitter patter of little mouse feet- he had received the letter, and, being horribly offended, was coming to exact his revenge.

Perched in front of a fireplace
One could be thinking of anything,
Distant castles and battles to be fought-
Dragons and demons and lovers lost
But as I curl up on the brick and place myself only inches from the flames
I think about how I wish the fireplace were real
And that it was in a much smaller house
So the warmth could chase away the cold and darkness from the farthest corners of the room.
Suddenly I remember my aunt and her fireplace
Situated in a house even bigger than this
As I watch she sits down on the cold marble hearth and reaches for a pack of cigarettes hidden in plain sight, puts one to her lips, and lights it
Exhaling the smoke into the flume
In my imagination I see myself taking one from her
Lighting it
And I inhale
And I exhale
Finding myself once again alone in front of the fireplace that isn't real,
the house still cold and dark as ever.

One day everything we have ever owned will be reduced to dust,
The last remnants of our lives
Scattered to the winds.
Just another child of the moon,
Another sad story.
Love and loss and laughter
Never to be remembered-
Tossed into the ocean.
Yet we see remnants of a struggle;
Names etched into stone,
Initials carved into trees,
Stories printed in ink-
All bearing the same timeless message.
I was here.
I was here.
I was here.