God

I closed my eyes to pray at night.
Like I could only find him in my imagination,
And closed lids were the secret to a successful dial.

I don’t think I ever got through.

Closing my eyes at night,
Hitting the busy tone,
Until the shadow of the light,
Came seeping over stained carpet from that time where I turned my head,
Like an exorcism and released all over the floor,
Not quick enough to get out of bed.

Stains that would never let up.
Like that busy signal on the other end,
With no menu of options,
Until the day came,
And I decided I couldn’t pretend.

There is a sense of freedom that comes,
When you stop begging for signs of someone that isn’t listening.

There is a sense of freedom that comes,
When you recognize that all the signs there are,
You placed with your own two hands.
Like when death was near,
And you put it up to your face to take a whiff,
And inhale what death smells like.

I didn’t much like the scent,
So I inhaled fresh air and decided there was a life worth living.
That sign, not brought to you by God but,
By yours truly and a pair of sneakers that hugged my feet just tight enough,
Just loose enough for them to swell.

That sign,
Brought to me by a body soaking in endorphins,
Neural synapses being coddled just the right way,
To bring a smile to my drenched, suffering face.

Sneakers hitting concrete,
Brought to you by science,
That believes in miracles,
That can be explained through facts.

The amount of power that shows up,
When His signs never do.

You choose to keep moving forward by the momentum of your own two feet.
When life gets tough,
And there is only one set of footprints in the sand.
The same set that was there,
Yesterday when you could get out of bed without convincing yourself it was a good idea.

That power.

And I still close my eyes at night.
Dreams play on the screen of my closed lids.
Nightmares.
But I don’t pray for safety,
Or for signs.
And when I want miracles,
I simply hit rewind.
I look back on how everything aligned.

Every choice that brought me here,
Every struggle,
Every triumph,
Every movement of my limbs.
It’s a miracle I made it.

A miracle,
Backed up with facts.
Those nights,
When it wasn’t enough to kill me,
A body,
Purging itself of poison with one plan.
And I refuse to give it over,
Credit of coincidence,
Determination,
To bring power to a silent man.