Rocks

When the rocks tell you to believe
you wonder where you lost your capacity in the first place
think
about the years you searched for God at the bottom of the bottle
learned
the liquor always runs out
but not your need to pray
and then count
all of those that went unanswered
watch open palms turn to fists
yet still try to learn his stories not as myth
but can’t stop finding the fairy-tales so comical.

I think I lost him the day I started looking
asked myself why
he wasn’t already buried so deep in my bones like with the rest of them
who had no questions as they dropped dollars for donations

I
clung to pennies
didn’t want to give anymore away to the imaginary
thought I’d collect enough to save them all
but you’ll notice
in the years of aging
that saving is only meant for self
everything else is just distraction
even if it’s a beautiful one
who knows how to hold you but if he doesn’t make you laugh when you don’t want to
learn to let him go

call this your transformation
call your God every opportunity for an exhale
and your religion when that exhale comes from a smiling mouth

see
how belief resides the strongest in the spaces that feel like healing
not always found in seats when another one is preaching
it’s way more simple than that
but we,
like to complicate God and mix him with words
and only,
when they are not our own
but really
they are all just cracking open bones
so I shake him out of me with laughter
rename God and call him Joy
pray
only when I’m grateful
gather friends
when I need to go to church
and when I find Joy slipping
I find him growing from the earth
collect her leaves and bring him home
light candles for the wicked
but don’t waste my time on their melting wax
remind myself
some bones
will always be harder to crack.

Like father,
who lost his soul in American soil
thought he’d find it in Russian church
but the building,
is never big enough to hold his anger
so he brings it home just the same
but only talks to God about it
and I note,
how bones won’t crack when they are laced in unspoken pain

so I count the days to when he wakes up
or falls asleep forever
and we bury him in the land that took him away
and so I pray
but don’t ask God for help
instead,
strive to fill myself with enough Joy that he sees God in his children
learns Church can look a lot like home
and God can feel a lot like family

and so he kneels
begins to pray at my mother’s feet
and she forgives him
washes over him with her tears
and we call this baptism
call this a man’s rebirth
call this his coming back to Earth

even if that Earth is America
where his freedom was never found
but he finally forgives himself
and the rest of them
and the rest of them
and learns to hold his children’s hands on foreign ground.