Lately, I have been praying in poetry.
I have been begging God to take these words and expose the truths in me. That the women I have been doing not go aimlessly. That those versions of myself did not die with words still wet on their lips, in a graveyard full of yets and what ifs. I asked God to give me a voice to make their deaths have a purpose.
Because I never asked for this. I never asked to have the tar pit residue aching against my lungs. I never asked my arms to carry the weight of my addiction, to mine myself until the gold rush ran blood. I never asked to attend funerals before they even happened. I never asked to watch the colour drain out of the eyes of the people I loved.
And to watch them sparkle with false hope every time I would whisper, fuck I'm done.
Every time those words would cross my lips, it was a prayer from the hopeless. Because the truth is when the words would eat my stomach, I would fucking mean it. I would have burned every vein left, just to taste freedom.
Until the crack in the window blows out and gets clean looks like it's glaring down at me from the highest shelf. I eat my words like they are the blackest smoke.
It's no wonder I choke every time. No matter how many days I've said it'll be different this time.
And I used to watch the sun come up, and not feel like I deserved its touch. I used to wonder what dress they would bury me in and if my parents would even say much.
After watching the flies in the sitting room drop one by one by one, I used to wonder when one would be the last 0ne.
Somehow, I wake up to a sun that prays. And for once I can hear the voice carrying above the noise in my brain.
The buzz that used to leave a rot in my throat, lies dormant. The women I have been lying in their graves and know that I hold love for them.
The version of myself that used to heat death in a spoon, and pray her kind of prayer, that peace was on the other side of the room.
She knows everything that we survived, in that room, and in all the ones where death was waiting for that last high.
Lately, I have been praying in poetry.
For the world to see what God has done for me.