Clothed

The tenth Station of the Cross - Christ stripped of his clothing

Lord, I do not want to be strong and noble. Your Advanced Placement class can have the backstage passes with the archangels. Let the plainclothes saints win Pulitzers for perseverance. I do not want to snowboard on the Olympic rings of discipline.

I am telling you because you know. I pay my gym membership monthly, but the treadmill does not know my soles. I would not mind if my spiritual muscles atrophied from disuse. Let them be like the lanterns I keep on hand for power outages. The batteries drain because they are not needed.

I have pressed my flowers between your pages since I was a child. The poets recite secrets sing-song. “We rejoice in this light and momentary affliction.” We “consider it all joy.” We “glory in sufferings because they produce perseverance, which produces hope.”

I believe. I wander off the line. I do not like pluralized “sufferings.” I peel off my gloves and throw down my goggles. I keep walking until I hit tall grass. I hide in the reeds where red foxes and feral cats go unseen. I want you to indulge me as a newborn or a pet. If you won’t, I will hide. I flatten myself, lying prone on your earth so you can’t see.

You rub my back anyway. You booby-trap my Wednesday with coincidence. I cannot walk into the pharmacy without getting brushed by your eyelashes as you wink. The day is tattooed with “She is clothed with strength and dignity and laughs with no fear of the future.” The verse is everywhere, even places you are seldom invited. My green pagan friends quote Proverbs over pictures of dreamcatchers. The clearance bin at TJ Maxx totters with decorative notepads stenciled in your cursive.

Lord, I see your serendipity, and I raise you my coup. I will take your fear-proof future and leave dignity for your firstborn. I do not want to talk about strength. I want my electricity to never go out. I want my microvascular system to retain maximum power. I want my ice cream to remain in stock. I want my autoimmune diseases to remain at low boil, since you are not taking them away. I do not want to develop retinopathy. I do not want you to take anything else away until the last time I close my eyes and then open them forever.

Will I get to do that if I will not do my homework? You know what I believe. You are on my bedroom floor like a sleepover friend I did not invite. You read my cat-scratched secrets. I believe you will get everyone in the minivan before it is too late. I believe we cannot invent any anarchy that would banish your love. I believe we will all collapse, exhausted, around your table. I believe you have a towel around your waist and focaccia in the oven. I believe you will not let us bring begging bowls.

You have inexplicably chosen me as your friend, which no creature would advise. I wish you did not trust me, spilling secrets as though you could burst. You bead me rainbow bracelets reading UNCONDITIONAL and IRREVOCABLE. You leak information I will immediately misuse. You are scarcely finished speaking before I bring a recording to the rebel under my ribs. The ink is wet on your letters, and it smears in my hands. You have said too much. I finger the beads when I am afraid.

I am not afraid of your hammer. I am afraid of your feelings. You watch me do extra credit for little lords. I am clothed in my work ethic and neuroticism, and I have 1% less fear of the future. I whittle myself to a crescent so I can wax friends’ faces to a sheen. I scramble up ascents. I convince them I am a loving girl. I want to comfort them with the comfort I have been given. I do not want to be given further need for comfort.

You read the bickering poetry in my decorative notepads. I weight my kindness. I tell myself I do it all for you. I plot to earn a Get Out Of Pain pass. I smell like sulfur and baby powder. I can’t tell if I am halfway to a hell I believe is empty, or safe as an infant.

Yes, Lord. I want you to keep me in the cradle. I want plush cats and a mobile solar system small enough to squeeze in my fists. I want to be immune. I want to gaze up at the crucifix over my nursery door and not need answers.

I wake with a smooth cross in my hand. I bounce, drowsy, in your backpack. The firstborn was swaddled, once. The towel is warm every morning. He unfolds it to show me the bread. We will eat and drink in the tall grass together. Lord, I want this.