Jeanne Henry

I SAID TO MY GOD

 

 

Maybe because I stopped

watering my houseplants

& let decay grow around me.

 

A happy man on the subway said

he’d pray for me

& I said no.

 

I don’t know what it was

that he saw: some deviled sadness

or an unloved angle of my spine.

 

The only god I’ve ever believed

in is New York City

& for that—apologies.

 

I was raised this way,

& it has cost years I can’t count

& if I am winning the war, I never really know.

 

I once believed my god

was only & best

& was able to love back.

 

This, despite lives robbed,

starving children

& a trembling city morphing in ash.

 

I believed my god

gave me what I deserved

& home & purpose & hope.

 

I am told my mom was a catholic

good enough for church

& for that—apologies.

 

I worry about my ability

to grow dumb and cruel

under this God’s altar.

 

So I said to my God: No.

No, I can’t love another

indifferent winter as a practice in patience.

 

I can’t swim in a self-important meeting

announcing I’ve fucked someone

I don’t remember.

 

This city is so strange

& impossible to hold & fully know

like any wholesome lover craves.

 

Maybe because I once believed

love only meant stay, I said to my god,

No, I absolutely can’t love you.

 


Jeanne Henry is a New York City-based Poet. Her work has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, Banango Street, The Found Poetry Review and other literary journals. She would love to hear from you on Twitter @papermaw.

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