an (atheistic) approach to belief

I carry a bible in my pocket now. It fits inside fake leather dip of hiding space. On the subway, I sneak it between my palms and underline the language that makes my blood seep through the holes in my skin. When I drip, I take note. This has become my companion these days as I gather up bits of moon and shadow, and conversational outbursts with others. Love is found in these pages. No need for beds or hand holding anymore; in this bound collection, I have found what I am most in need of: challenged thought and deeper meanings.

My volume is a bit different. There is God mentioned, but less attached to religion and more saturated by the language of poetics. I call it my bible, but it calls itself: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Sixteen years ago, a teacher of mine gave it to me and I have carried it from home to home in various states and mindsets. What led me to reopen this book and sew it to my body in this way is what I think might lead others to attend to their own searches. Seven years ago, I fell against pavement and received nine stitches among other medical help. One month ago, I fell in a different way and this book is my cane. For now.

I am not sure the moment I started calling myself an atheist. Several events could have led me there, but I believe it became solidified when I couldn’t find meaning to the parts of me stained and scarred by these happenings. I just stopped believing. Though as I look back, I still had/have my beliefs. I believe in magic and found it in humans and love affairs and at the tops of mountains and in cabins. I believe in poetry and the essence of its healing powers.

This is probably what led me to house this particular “bible” in my pocket.

Rilke writes, “…ask yourself…whether you have really lost God. Isn’t it much truer to say that you have never yet possessed him? Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? Don’t you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn’t it be His beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful.”

I replace “God” with “love”. I replace “God” with “words”. I replace “God” with “you”/”your”. 

All of this doesn’t have to be an end to something. That period at the end of the sentence could be its beginning. The loss of another could be the beginning of something so much deeper.

Yesterday, I was thinking about pronouns and how we are given a name at birth and a pronoun attached to it, but what if it doesn’t fit? So we make our own versions of what we need and what we are. This pertains to my atheism or what I thought my spiritual (non)belief was called. Perhaps I was never one. Perhaps there is something in between belief and non. Like: betweeniest. 

My mind is not set. Even at this age, it changes. Sometimes, it falls apart and I have to reshape it. This can be exhausting; however, it offers me a chance to rummage through the parts of myself I so often neglect. We do this sometimes.

So, I take off on a trip and feel the miniature words of Rilke press against me. It is erotic in how alive it makes me feel. Fear is what has kept me away from living (at times). Fear of understanding what I just don’t understand. Finally, finally….I am ready for answers found in these letters written between 1903 to 1908. Still relevant and connected to the language of the earth we all linger on.

And that’s kind of accurate….we linger. We loiter. We endure. And to fill in all the gaps and breaths of silence, we question.

even in doubt there is conviction

Dear Air.

I call you this because I do not see you. And I’d rather call you something that maybe you haven’t been called before. I write letters to you but they pile themselves into my palms and my arms shake. My wrinkles drown beneath the words I do not send you. But if you are all around me then I just may leave these notes on my body. You will find them as you wrap yourself into around me. Forgive my misspellings or unintelligible gasps. This language is heavy and I am tired and I am tired and I am tired. My prayers are edible and I forget to chew and there is choking and sometimes the spice causes me to lose control and when it is bland I rub my sweat into its soundlessness. You will never find me on my knees and my hands do not clasp and I do not wear beads or count blessings. The songs are only about the soil I wish cluttered around my bones because blood is too thin and much more grows out of dirt and clay.

Dear Wind.

I call you this because I hear your hum. And even in my tears, you climb into my salt and press them away. The other day, you lifted me up from path toward underground subway. My toes flew for a moment. If I threw paint against your invisible, you’d be stained glass. You’d be oil slick puddle of rainbow. Believe? Does it matter? I feel and this sense does not need to be in buildings or engage in holy. I do not need to memorize your songs; I have my own. I will not starve or separate or cling. The thing is, I’m still here. I’m still here.

That is enough.

atheist puddle dweller or whispered scar collector

If I were to call my body an atheist, would that mean there was nothing left on my skin to question or believe. If I used the metaphor of a thousand cardboard boxes broken down and hushed into plastic bags as my body, would that be enough to visualize. How about a lost hitchhiker jumping on the back of metal and bumps, curled into corner against window trying to invision a way out of itself.

We have begun to name snowstorms and I wonder if we do this to place blame on something that slows down our day, freezes up our bent parts and throws us down. When it melts, ice forms or puddles and now that I have boots made by Canadian prisoners, I stomp in them. There is no fear left when protection is worn.

But what happens when entire body is a puddle and there is no costume or uniform to defend oneself from the splash.

Notice the reflection of Wednesday in that spilt body. Or the aggression of oil swirled in like leaked rage. Notice the blemishes; try to medicate it away or stomp it into something less dimensional.

I have been dwelling inside this construction site called body for over three decades or maybe more than that but what I remember can only fit inside a plastic bag big enough for a meal of rushed bites. Others are pushing for an explanation of how this puddle got like this or why it insists on exchanging shapes (sometimes) or why it used to welcome stranger’s punches and soiled footprints but now but now but now it needs to grant permission.

Or….

Perhaps my body is more like a near-sighted mountain lion: roar of genders and fur, sharp-toothed poetics and agility. Does any of this even matter.

Here is how it ends: set fire to body to see what part you (choose) to save first.

[what remains is what existed all along]

what it looks like to believe

Are you Jewish?

A young girl with brown hair gathered into a neatly assembled ponytail asks me this, as I wait for the 4 train on Franklin Avenue.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this. Many times throughout the year, Orthodox men wearing thick beards and dark clothing have come up to me wanting to give me Shabbas candles or call out the songs of the shofar or just simply pray with me.

In the past, I have said yes. But my answer is far more complicated than that. I am not Jewish.

For a long time, I was Agnostic leaning toward Atheist. Perhaps dabbling in yoga has stretched my body out enough to progress my leaning into full-blown Atheist.

It’s not that I don’t believe in anything. I believe in Poetry. I believe in the magic of nutrition and the reward of eating a good meal and my body’s reaction. I believe in gun control. I believe in global warming. I believe in the power of free speech. I believe.

It’s just that I’ve been inside too many rooms where too much has happened for me to still get down on my knees and pray to a / some God.

I wish. And I have thoughts seeped in devoted pleas, but I’m more moved by the strength and rise of the sun, rather than the inscribed stories written in the best-selling book of all time.

In the past, I have said YES to these religious men who have asked me if I were Jewish because it seemed easier to say one word (that they were already expecting) then qualify my atheism. But two weeks into a new year and I guess I just want to stop obliging so much. So, when this young child asked me, I said: No.

Suddenly my body got really, really hot. Granted, I was wearing many layers at the time, but it is Winter and this is the costume we must wear: scarf, several textures of shirts on top of each other and jacket (maybe 2) and heavy socks and hat and gloves and

I was sweating.

Suddenly, the train came and I watched her and her family get on the same car as me, though we were at different ends.

I looked toward her and noticed her notice me.

Then….her father. Right beside me.

“I think you might be Jewish,” he said.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what about me led him to think this. My bright red hair? The curls? Do Jews have dreadlocks? I’m poorly dressed and have been called messy by a number of women. Is that a tip-off? My nose? My thin lips? My dimples?

“I…I don’t practice,” I said.

“Your parents are Jewish. So you are.”

The thing is, I didn’t feel bombarded. I have a bias against men like him: white, middle-aged. But he wasn’t a man standing in front of me, handing me candles for praying and a pamphlet. He was a devout believer. He wasn’t pushy, nor did I feel threatened by his question in any way.

And I wonder. Why don’t we do this more often.

We ask: how are you?
We ask: what do you do for a living?

But what about:

Are you a Poet?
Are you happy?
What do you believe in?
How do you find a way out of your suffering?
Are you hungry?
What are you reading?
What words stain your wrist?
Where do your tears come from?

These men…this child…they are bold enough…such unwavering believers…that they are fearless. They go up to strangers and ask them this question without any judgement of their answer. Both child and father looked deep into me. My NO did not matter. They saw religion in me. Even if it is the religion of poetry; it is something.

I feel my feet curve from side-to-side in my black boots that are torn and have a not-so-secret hole in the soul sole that invites rainwater in. My migraine is back like a lover that I never loved in the first place. And the pain in my mind tries to take me away from my day. Smothering. Debilitating.

But in the evening, I fall against poets and we pray without finger-clasp. Without stained-glass windows or angels or illuminated memorials. We toast to words and I feel the belief inside them. And I don’t even have to ask. Although…I think I understand the power of hearing one’s answer.

take a knee

for { _._ }

We are often humbled by our crazy. By our hypnosis of chaos and gutted scar tissue. Why must we press pills into mouths who converse with invisible tribes. There is no need to call in sick or call out numbers like 9-1-1 when knees only need some dirt or wooden plank and hands can clasp or shake; there is really no uniform to this. Just breathe or don’t and it will all arrive in time.

A New York City rodent eats away at my french sourdough bread–purchased at the farmer’s market–which I left on my kitchen counter, and I am angry. I grow sad that it didn’t ask permission. And I want to know if there was enjoyment in its yeast. And I want to know if it grew bloated afterward. Or did it take the time to spread some peanut butter on it. And did it pray beforehand or at least take a moment to express gratitude for this find.

A small white dog barks at me on my way home from work and I begin to cry. I think about a big black dog too far away to pet. My arms are willing to stretch far to reach him, but I’d have to remove them first. I pick up one of my tears as though it is a child that just needs to be held. I let my tongue travel through its salt and memory.

I just want to know what home feels like.

Sometimes this city feels like a zipper I feel trapped in and there is too much blood to mention or measure but the music distracts me and the free love overwhelms me.

I see a hazel leaf by my foot, which is trapped in false leather; this smells of dust and Halal trucks fuming; hear the woman by the F train gasping out her cigarette.

am i breathing is this breathing is it breathing if i feel do i feel is this feeling what is felt

Woman plunges her map into my water.

Fall hard.

What is really meant by prayer? My knees are atheists. My breasts are annoyed and what fits between my legs is no longer fitting. What do I say? Forgive me? Reference how long it has been since the last time? This first time is the last time which is the only time which may lead to the next time, but I really cannot be sure.