Rose and Wandered

Millions have convinced themselves they are loved by a thing they've never seen. That the thing makes miracles happen. That the thing answers prayers. That the thing speaks to them. That the thing knows what's best. And millions have built their whole architecture on this. I understand it. I have done it too. I have knelt in the particular dark of my own making and called it holy. Called it chosen. Called it grace. The mind is very good at finding fathers in the fog. But the fog does not love you back. It only holds its shape until the light comes, and then it becomes what it always was: nothing with the texture of something. Air that learned to look like arms. I have been very devout in my disappointments. I tithe in sleep. In swallowed words. In years. And what returns is silence, dressed up clean, wearing the face I needed it to wear. Still, I do not blame them. The believers. To need a thing that badly is its own kind of proof, not of the thing, but of the need. And the need is real. The need is enormous. The need is the only god I've ever touched.