TALKING TO GOD ABOUT HEAVEN FROM THE BED OF A HEATHEN

You should know that although I miraculously

agreed to attend Bible camp one summer (my devoutly

pragmatic parents signed me up because the camp was free),

I don’t & have never believed in you. Yet here I am:

sitting up in bed, thinking about death, & needing

to talk to someone who (reportedly) has the inside story.

I know, though, that there are believers who don’t believe

out of fear solely. They actually love you. They reach out

& receive your touch. Like a friend, like a boyfriend, like the boy

beside me, overheating, reeking of sweat, & still (somehow)

asleep. I wish I could feel your warmth, as easily

as I feel his. But I don’t. I feel fear. I hear fear telling me I’m

a body, that’s all. & the boy I love is a body. & bodies die. No

other world, no return to this world in another form. (Annihilation.)

It isn’t that I didn’t think these were the facts before. It’s that now,

he’s here. I have to try harder. Believe the facts could be

at least a little wrong. Please, something. Some

magic, real as this ripe life with him.