Altar Prayer

I used to dream of being wanted,

Being powerful,

Being sexy,

Being the kind of thing they couldn’t take their eyes off of.

If that sounds strange, maybe you’ve never heard a child pray for love

or maybe never in a language with no word

for “love.”

Now every man I meet,

they all call me

“sexy.”

Why is it if you dream it hard enough it comes true

but only if it’s something you never really needed?

Ive been writing the same prayer about healing for 20 years,

tucked away in cracked walls,

cracked homes,

cracked humans.

Who is the god of things that have broken?

Is it that she can’t hear us,

Or is it that she doesn’t want to?

Are our lives too unholy for any prophet’s translation?

I’ve been called sacrilegious but not sacred and you know,

time passes and you lose track of what came first:

what they said

Or what you were.

I do know:

There was prayer in every time I’ve given this body.

And if i’ve been Babylon’s whore I’m its Magdalene, too.

-9/24/19