The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

The idea that it ends—that it all ends—that everything you spend your life doing and building toward one day amounts to actually nothing the second you take your last breath.

It’s a funny part of growing up, actually… Accepting that things that are better for you, healthier—they can still be painful. That the worst, most shameful day of my life to date would in turn become the most defining.

“Don’t weaponize the Bible for your own gay agenda.”

He drops his head as he laughs, then looks back up at me and the light from the sun makes his eyes look like little stars—or maybe the light’s just coming from inside of him?

It’s in this hollow I think most of the church resides, but I think the place God would like us to be is in the gutters or the libraries asking questions about why a good God would make a world so fucked up.

Silence with him is five fifteen in the morning before the sun’s up and it’s still dark but the birds are singing. He’s the heavy quilt you pull over your head when it’s too cold and too early to wake up. He’s the song no parent ever loved me enough to sing. He’s the way water runs and bubbles over stones in a stream. He’s a quiet mind.

His kisses are commas.

And I think to myself, wouldn’t it be so lovely if we viewed ourselves through the same lens as the people who love us?

I wonder what it might cost a person to spend their whole lives apologizing for loving who they love.