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Pray to anything that feels holy. Notice how everything feels holy when you pay attention.
When my clock started, the ticking sound enraged me. Mortality is loud when you were infinite just a moment ago.
When my mother left the room, I erupted. I didn’t have the words to say: Please come back. We don’t have much time together—I can hear the moments passing.
If there’s a reckoning after this life for the mistakes we made in it, I hope it’s something like this. I hope the universe pulls me into her lap and combs her fingers through my hair while I tell her what I did. I hope she says, Oh honey, I know you didn’t mean to. Of course I still love you. Yes, I think we can fix it. I think it will all come out in the wash.
When was the last time you were alone with your heartbeat and the sky? When did you forget how to let go?
You can ask God if she’ll take the first watch.
I’m shy if you’re funny. I’m funny if you’re shy. My voice flies high if I want you to think I’m sweet, and low if I want you to think I’m smart. I’m like a snake that drags all my old skins behind me, in case someone thinks one of them suits me better.
I’m struck by how pain is the glue of womanhood. We are never more likable than when we are failing. We are never more relatable than when we are suffering.
But once, at the grocery store, I accidentally patted an old woman’s hand as we reached for the same head of romaine. I said: I’m sorry about that! Great minds think alike! She replied, Don’t be! That’s the only touch I’ll get today. And I laughed. Me too.
Invite lust over for dinner. Eat with your hands.
I don’t know the way out of your woods, but I’ll stay with you in the neck of them.
Now, I know those delays are prayers. This life only lasts for a moment. I see no better reason to linger than to cling to holy, mundane togetherness as it slips through our hands.
God, let me keep the people I love on the line for as many fifteen-more-minutes as I can. Only when I have to, God, let me let them go.
