Swear to God

What happens is you ask me, Truth or dare? and I say: both.

Do you believe in God?

I’m just trying to survive the day, you know what I mean. Survive the gray drizzle tapping on the slanted tin roof. Survive the night which is about to unfold in front of us for no reason other than because it has to and it has no other choice.

You didn’t answer my question.

You didn’t listen to my answer. Let me say this another way. I know there’s something out there, something toying with us from the other side, but only if you believe in ghosts. The way a child is a afraid of the dark until one night the dark sits at the edge of the bed, plays with the child’s hair until they become a kind of friends which turns into a secret which never goes away. It just sinks down lower and lower into the child’s bones, and then blooms and lives inside of her, takes on its own variation of feelings, perceptions, intuitions.

There are shadows on the ceiling standing still as they look on, eyeless. You reach out and trace a small symbol on my breast, tell me I should pray.

I don’t believe in your God but I like your fingers on my skin. I imagine going down on you just to prove my point but I’m so sick of your games I just stare off into the distance and swallow the last of my drink.

Sex is God. Whiskey is God. Art is God. Stale mouths and smoky pink skies which rise in the early dawn. And we dance and we fuck and we lie and we all fall down.

I don’t believe in your God so don’t ask. I left God a long time ago but not before he left me a million times over. It doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything it just means I probably don’t believe in you, unless you prove you are really here and really paying attention.

As though reading my mind, you undress and dare me to do the same. It’s a little bit funny and I almost smile when I lay back and raise my arms above my head. When my eyes take in your pale skin and muscular build, the vapors in my blood begin to simmer and I think about how what we really want to worship is danger because in lives as boring as these it’s frighteningly hard to come by.

But you don’t ask me any more questions so I don’t tell you you’re the safest place I’ve ever been in God knows when.

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Photo by Ava Sol