People always say there are some things too terrible to build beauty out of
I am lying down on a couch in the prayer room of a hospital
Facing the huge cross I don't pray to staple-gunned onto the wall
Waiting, while my battery dies, to hear if my father will live or not
I'm not trying to make this sound poetic or romantic or even bearable
Let's just agree I've never felt so lost in my life, not even when I had no friends and I fought daily with my mother
If my father dies, so does she, and I never pictured myself as the protagonist of an Orphans Plight story
Certainly not with two younger brothers to care for
I feel guilty, because I've imagined him dying sometimes, I always imagine it as a relief but I feel nothing now, not even numbness
I wonder if God is punishing me for those thoughts and wishes
I'm trying to out-pray those thoughts, counting the blessings on the lines of my fingers
Hoping to heaven someone up there will take pity on me and save his life
This evening I told my aunt I wouldn't care if he came back whole or not, I just want his dying-seal laugh back on the dinner-table