“I found God in the cracks between the tiles
of my bathroom wall,
as I puked my guts and
my melancholy
into the toilet.
I lost God for the first time
in my first love’s eyes,
the way the unearthly brown flecks
of his eyes caught the fluorescent lights.
I lost God in the way
I swore to love him for the rest of my life,
and in the way the “I love you”s soon
turned into nothing but fragile syllables to break
the uncomfortable silence.
I found God in he hastily wrapped cigarette paper,
but He only lasted before
specks of withered ashes
could hit the ground.
I lost God in the bottom of
the pill bottle,
and at the threshold of the tub,
where my toes lingered to touch
the steaming hot water,
where I sat for hours on end,
staring at my reflection,
begging him to stop me…
begging him to be real.
I lost God in the midst of the
soft music,
my hands on a girl’s waist,
my eyes devouring her.
In my head she was God,
the most divine, exquisite immortal
(I made her immortal,
for I had put down on paper the way
her body moves beneath mine).
I think God was calling for me,
telling me to snap out of it.
But everything else
was too vivid for me
to hear.
I found Him in the blood
under my fingernails
after heated nights where
I was too frail to dial
my best friend’s phone number.
But I washed my hands,
and he was gone again.
I evaded God
in the bends of her body,
the bends of her smile,
the bend of her tranquil manner
when I told her
that I loved her.
I have lost and I have found God
in all the places I have been told
he would usually avoid.
The back of a car with a boy
whose lips were venomous,
the cramped bathroom
where I rashly thought
to end my life,
and in body of a girl
who still cannot love me back.
I think that even after all this time,
even after the vile, decadent side of me
still denies Him a space in my heart,
another part of me still hopes He’s real.
A part of me still hopes He’ll save me.”
— this is how I lost and found and lost god again