It's easy to die, but it's hard being soulless.
I tell myself life is worth living. Handing me the gun is easy, but don't force me to convince you why I wouldn't use it. I walk around with a wound in my hand on display, yet I still smile at children. It's funny, it's ironic, and it's beautiful. It's life after war.
"May the peace and grace of God be with you," they say. They're right. Since the womb, I've been fighting for the title of God. The moment of umbilical separation was the 3..2...1... I puked at every chance they had to shove their milk in my mouth. It's just me and my competitor, God, throwing punches till one of us loses the faith of our audience, like two twins doomed with the faith of murder.
I am a winner; I am God.
I didn't know this back then.
I never knew how to make the coffee. It never interested me. Nor did I fluff the China that sat in the cupboards. I didn't prepare the baths. The bed would be left unmade if it were up to me. How would this save me? I'd have to swallow the murky residue left in the coffee cup to make it to heaven. Bend down on my knees and hope someone shoots me. No glossolalia would be enough to open the gates of heaven, where the jury awaits my indictment. I can't die, but I can't be the living dead. Death would be surrender; I needed victory.
They fooled me. I was so close, but they convinced me I was stuck in the deepest part of the well. Occasionally, they'd uncover the well cap to see if I was still breathing. So typical of their God, depriving you of your humanity yet constantly checking to see if you still believe they exist. Otherwise, what's the point of fighting at all? We'd drop our arms and surrender to the forces of universal peace. It can't be that way. Dichotomies of good and evil make the world go round and round and rumble and tumble. I didn't even realize I was so close to the top. If my fingers so happened to slip from my grip on the tethered rope, it would all be over. I'd let my body scatter across the ground, and they'd come and collect the pieces of dust to sprinkle into their glasses of wine made from the blood of their prisoners of war.
Esther was a whistleblower, or Ishtar of Babylonia, or Star, the savior of morality at God's behest. Being selfless has never been a good thing, at least in the favor of another God. The people will take every ounce of benevolence and safety they can get. They'll watch the boat sink as long as their raft is afloat. They watch the sun rise and fall daily without ever thanking it for its consistency. They do this all in vain. They depend on an answer for salvation. They rely on a merciless God. A fraud. A fake.
But maybe I'm still looking for salvation.
In a person, in an ideology, in a marketplace, in a diet, in the poplar seed pods that float around in the air while I'm on my daily walk. I'm never going to find it. I am God. I look at myself and see a blistering light. My blood is glitter, and my skin is cut from the cloth of serenity. I won the race. Once I convince myself of that, I'll be free—okay, even.
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