Holy

The holy moments were holy because they didn't last. They shone in a life flooded with moments that didn't matter. And they were most holy in the times and places that seemed most mundane.

I have a memory of you touching my knee through torn jeans. It was a cold spring day, and everything was coming alive while we were dying. We were sitting in a courtyard that didn't belong to us, not saying anything. It's the one memory I would take with me to my grave.

Swinging in the park like we were children. But as we swung you asked me how to make everything inside stop hurting. I pumped my legs harder as I said, "I think you just have to let it hurt."

And G. always laughing and crying deeper than anyone. Always in her own holy world. I looked up in the sky today and wished I could feel the things she feels every day. I wish even that I could feel the numbness when she thinks there's nothing there. Because there's always something growing inside of her.

I woke up this morning with a sick feeling in my stomach as you walked away. Your cold, wet lips kissed mine and I knew you'd grown too busy to love me.

For one moment I was holy all by myself tonight. One star shone in the sky next to a halfhearted moon. And I cried to myself (and no one else) that I might never feel alive again. Could holiness surprise me? Could love wash over me so quickly I can't resist its current? Could I give way to the terror, and find something beautiful again? I fear I've grown too cynical to ever be moved.

All my life I've felt like I was losing people. What hurts most, I think, is the feeling that when they leave I've lost a sense of who I am. If I'm not sacred like I was in their eyes, do I matter?