and wasn’t i always good for you, when you needed me to be?

would always hold your hand when you reached for me,

throw pebbles against your window to wake you,

would have waited all night for you in a storm, even when the hail was about to split me

down the middle like a sin.

maybe that’s not true. maybe this is self

indulgent, sad private myth

making, but God, in my dreams i ripped the world

open at the seams

for you. in reality,

you probably did more ripping. you were the god

the rest of us made breathless supplication to, the marker

i knelt for until my legs went numb. in the language of our parents,

a god is an emperor who lives in the sky.

these days i say i’m done with the era of gods and kings,

but i can’t keep your name out of my mouth.

i think even in death we are bound

by the limits of our lives.

for all the good their brains did them,

our ancestors could never imagine an afterlife

without an emperor or a future

where you and i could be here holding

ourselves together, thousands of miles from

what would’ve been home. i get it, the need for continuity.

to feel less alone, less meaningless. i want it to make sense too.

even now, an avowed atheist

from a family that’s been godless for thousands

of years, i can’t help reaching for a

Something, a Someone, a Father Son or Holy Spirit,

to hold my hand when i need it to be held.