God Spit Me Out

In the morning I kneel. I clasp my hands together. I ask for forgiveness. I dig caverns into my soul and ask the universe to fill them. I pray in the last rays of nighttime for proof of deity and proof of hope.

I rise. I dress. I go. I read the Bible. I study the words that somehow organized in different combinations are supposed to do something meaningful. I beg that meaningful shred of something to materialize, those little blots of ink to weave together into blankets of sense that I can wrap myself in. But they don't.

I work hard. I work until my head pounds. The repetition hurts in the best kind of way, it hurts like love hurts, it hurts like truth hurts. I watch the clock. Maybe sometime soon, I think. Maybe not now but maybe sometime. The hour comes and goes and nothing. The next hour comes and goes and nothing.

At lunch I sit in the park on a bench. It's cold but I like the cold. It's lonely but I like being alone. My hands hold each other like they do when I pray like apostles hold their own hands in paintings. People walk past and my soul reches out and asks them to touch it. Asks for just a little bit of warmth. They keep walking.

I'm home in the night and the shadows lay their heavy arms around my shoulders. I shovel food into my mouth but it doesn't satiate the hunger. I'm hungry I'm hungry I'm hungry, I whisper into the world.

Before I fall asleep I kneel again. My knees hurt. I try to breath, I ask the air to enter my lungs, I ask my lungs to breath my air. Let me hear let me speak let me feel. Please please please.

No. No one says it, but I feel it in the empty spaces that reach into me and laugh at how much emptier I am than them. No. No. No. I'm told no by nothing.

I get up. I go to sleep.