I Don't Pray When I Feel Good

by Maddy Langan

I don't pray when I feel good. My palms feel slick with sins attempting to escape my body before I have to tell you what I’ve done. I wish I could go with them, free falling from my fingertips to the floorboards, they get a new life among the bottom of shoe soles and bare feet. My lips tremble, drool pooling at the tip of my tongue drowning any comprensible thought I could have mustered to you. I was not raised religious, but I know I’ll die religious, grasping at fragments of prayers I heard on T.V., hoping the carefully crafted words of a book I’ve only seen the movie of, were accurately transcribed to the screen. My mind feels scattered, my chest feels heavy with each exhale more violent as my breath sharpens itself against my ribs, I don’t pray when I feel good. If all from dust to dust we return then when my knees return to the ground, I hope my prayers reach you from the skin you left to collect on my linoleum. My head is bent, I’m too shameful to look you in the eyes when I use your name in vain to beg for one more night where I don’t need to abstain. My throat croaks out cryptic sentences strung together with desperate pleas that you’ll understand what I’m trying to utter, please don't make me say it. Once God grants me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, maybe then I’ll know the peace of someone with their hands clasped tightly, your name spilling off their tongue like a first love’s name, you don’t forget it. But, how could I trust you, how could I tell you my wrongs and ask for forgiveness when you already know each lie I’ve readily concocted to get two steps closer to you? Cheater, cheater on their knees in front of your feet, I know you want to hear me say I did it. You want to see my spine bend until I am small enough to repurpose until I am back to dust. If I list my sins, one by one, name by name, will I finally win a spot in the light? Will my cheeks rise as the weight of my own wrongdoings is lifted from a bone once used to smile? Will you love me even when my body has dragged itself to temptation's door, long after it's closed? When I’m begging for one more drop well past last call, lingering to see what hands will pity me enough to drag me to their door where my next vice awaits. I don't pray when I feel good.