Religion Having Been Misplaced, We Grasp for Alternatives

by Johanna Armstrong

Windows and rooms and white blankets,
frost on your fingers and furrowed brows:
The stars don't light the way,
but our words do, spilling and staining
the concrete as we walk to the park, casting
light on those dark corners we were once
afraid of. Coffee shops, curbs, houses and
homes, buses and desks and dark closets,
your cigarette is still in my pocket,
your songs in my head, my name in your books,
when I sleep and I dream of those coffee cups
we fell into, head first into the darkness, into
the despair and despondence that keeps me awake,
waiting for your voice to run over the road
through the wires like blood into my phone,
into my ears, our voices coated in delusion,
saying: We'll wear bulletproof vests, to protect our hearts
from the bullets, a figurative vest, for figurative bullets.
But I know you mean Words, you mean to say words
because it's what they say that hurts the worst, but
you can't feel a thing now, we can't feel a thing because
the winter has made us numb, has made us apathetic
and she said, This is it, this is what we've been waiting for;
but I never believed her. No, no, I believe in her.
I believe in you, and all that we've done, and all
that we'll do, but I believe we are still waiting
for salvation, I believe we are still looking
in bottles and bags and boxes for something to say,
You're okay now, it's over.
But it's never over, it's never over, that's something
we learned from our parents, that's what we've found
in needles and cigarettes and pills and bottles and blood:
it's never over. But I believe in you.