I.
Eloi, Eloi, do you even hear my question?
II.
I am an organically stupid child,
wearing dirty jeans
worn out at the knees
from too many nights spent
in too many bathrooms with
too many people.
I will never learn.
I try, though, I try,
sitting alone in a corner,
trying to scoop the shale out of my head and
make room for what I’m supposed to know.
All I get are bloody hands.
It’s my own fault;
I was told from the Beginning
to be quiet and
sit still.
Goddamn.
III.
I wish for a wilderness to wander in,
a place where I can open my throat and
spill my grief into the wind,
watch a gust whip it up and
scatter it
until it can hurt no one.
As it is, there are only domesticated bathrooms,
planted in beds of ears.
I cry out as loudly as I can without
breaching the noise of the bathroom fan,
as long as I can before
I have to make a showing.
I cry out loud,
and long,
and orphaned.
IV.
Intellectually, I believe
that God runs through my veins
like blood,
but I am anemic still.
I kneel again, as I have so often---
forehead, knees, toes pressed against
linoleum,
arms around my gut,
but
this time,
the first time,
I send my prayers into myself,
hoping the implosion
will send me back into the Universe.
© 2008 Tracy R. Franklin
Tracy R. Franklin
Begging for God
