I’m bent in half on the bathroom floor, crater-veined.
God is my phlebotomist. She says She’s here to leave a mark,
but I’ve never been impressed with the falling tree question.
I already know there are so many ways to not hear.
I don’t know how to talk to Her, or what a prayer is,
only that I couldn’t hear Her a month ago, and that last week
I spoke anyway. I’d spent the last hour trying
to calculate the worth of a life, and I was wondering
what my shadow meant, why I could watch it walk for hours
and forget that my legs were the ones bearing the weight.
I asked if I should feel guilty for holding it hostage.
She told me She knew someone once whose arms bore the scars
of my pain, that i could find his blood in mine if I looked hard enough.
But I’ve already played miner on my veins more times than I can count,
and still have yet to find my own answer key.
So here I am, bent in half, again, pretending
the lightbulb is the sun, and the running tap the ocean, pretending
I’m thinking about the historical significance of flesh and blood
and not how to justify this to a nurse, pretending I have the energy
to open my arms to the sky, that every second I lie, body
pressed against the tile doesn’t pull me closer to gravity.
Then my phone is in my hand. A number is dialed.
Thank God
this is all I know of Grace.
Anastasia DiFonzo (she/her) is a San Diego based poet with a cat named Klaus. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, Sledgehammer Lit, Punk Noir Magazine, Kalopsia Lit, Yasou!, Salt & Citrus, Tempered Runes Press, and Drunk Monkeys. She is on Instagram at @anastasia.difonzo and Twitter at @anmidaludi.
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