I ran away from church, today.
The old walls were full of termites and mould, and the room smelt musty as the preacher preached. I sat and listened, my ankles crossed beneath my modest skirt, and my hands clasped neatly over knobbly knees. His words infiltrated my heart and soul, and I was a good girl, sir, I was. I didn’t have anything to confess to the priest, but that’s okay, because we’re not Catholic. Pray directly to God, they said, that’s why Jesus died, so that we could. So I kneeled before my bed, and thought hard and long. Would he be old and wrinkly, a greying beard and a walking stick? Would he be a white Che Guevara, with the pastel white skin, soft as snow and porcelain, that never seemed to get burnt? I tapped along the wood, there, along my bedframe, and wanted to touch God, to feel him move inside my body and soul.
The next morning, I came back to Church, and told the pastor that I prayed all night, and never felt a thing. He looked at me sideways, all doubtfully, and asked if I had prayed for forgiveness. That’s all I ever pray for, Sir, I thought. I pray for forgiveness when I take a shot of vodka at Marlene’s sixteenth, when I have his cock between my youthful hands, when I swear at the teacher in my mind. Daddy said I had been a bad girl, when I didn’t get the grade he wanted, and I prayed for forgiveness about that. So yes, Sir, I prayed for forgiveness, and still God never gave me a gentle nudge. He smiled, placing his sweaty, old-man’s hand on my fragile shoulder, gentle as a birdcage. —Well then, he rumbled in my ear, —maybe God doesn’t want to talk to you just yet. He must have a plan.
And that’s when I ran away, as fast as I could. I shuddered and sobbed the entire way home, realising I had left my bike back there in the minister’s office. I sacrificed my bike to the cause; it would be my last weekly offering. And with that final burning snub, I left the Church, for I could not Love & Listen to a God who loved silence more than me.
