photo by matthew simmons
dear god
Kirsty Logan
I call you god but you know I don't believe. I never have. well, maybe I did once, for a few months, when I was nine. remember that little book of bible stories, the one with the mustard-yellow cover and shiny red letters? of course you know. you know everything. or you would, if I believed. I spent hours staring at that illustration of lot's wife turning to salt from the toes up. already her calves were bitty and pale under her shawls, but her hand in her husband's hand was still a hand. just. I stared at that photo and I also stared at the one of daniel about to get munched down by lions and also the one of the tower of babel toppling over and also the one of sodom and gomorrah burning burning burning. you know my least favourite illustration, god? the last one. the one at the very end. I didn't know what it was, but it looked boring. it had some animals like rabbits and lambs, and a bunch of trees, and a few white people sitting on the grass and smiling the sort of smile my mother smiled when my father talked about football or the next-door neighbour talked about her new baby, that sort of 'yes, lovely' smile, but I knew she didn't really care. I figured out what that last illustration was, and then I didn't look at the mustard-yellow book any more. I told the neighbour that her baby was boring. I told my mother that heaven looked boring. it's just a thing that little girls do, right? I had just stopped reading the mustard-yellow book when I met Her. She was an angel, god. there's no other word. She's been with me ever since. right from the muddy spotting of our first periods to the swollen blush of acne to the coke-sweetened kisses behind the bike sheds to the ache of tightened braces to close-mouthed smiles in yearbook photos. She was there, in my hands, on my heart. She was my girlboygirlfriend. but now She's gone. I see Her in the halls between classes but She won't even look at me. it's like we never shared popcorn or rolled down hills or told secrets or rubbed against our pillows or said we would get married or did kissing that we said was for practice but it wasn't practice, god, it was real. it was what love tastes like. She said it's because of Her parents. and Her friends, and Her teachers and Her future kids. but I know it's because of you. She thinks you wouldn't approve. She thinks things like damnation and wrath and hellfire and judgment and burning. She thinks salvation. but I know salvation, god. salvation tastes of Her tongue. salvation smells of cut grass on the soles of Her feet. salvation feels like Her hair across my cheek and Her fingers against my lips. now there's nothing without Her. there's just a rabbit and a tree and some white people on the grass, and that is nothing. I know I don't believe in you but I believe in Her, and She believes in you. so I'm asking.
so I'm praying.
I'm praying.
please.
tell her it's okay.