Night Sky with Exit Wounds

by Ocean Vuong

If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once.

Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we’re this close to the devil.

God must be a season, grandma said, looking out at the blizzard drowning her garden.

Dear god, if you are a season, let it be the one I passed through to get here.

& remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.