Some Place I’ve Never Been
I can’t be here anymore. The thought swallows me when I am running on the treadmill at the gym. I do eight minute miles now. I lost god somewhere back there. I can’t recall time or place. I am not happy. I am unhappy. I do not feel happy. I think this over and over until the four mile mark. When I finish there’s sweat dripping from my hair into the inside corner of my left eye, stinging me.
I used to think belief was easy. But the effort it takes to stand in conviction has become too much for me. If I am not tough enough for that, I am not tough enough for anything. I have to leave before someone else decides I am not worth keeping. This is what I know, and I repeat it because one time I forgot and here is where it left me.
I am going to drive to somewhere I’ve never been. “It’s going to cure you. It’s going to fix everything.” I say to myself without believing. I think of the places I would rather be and start planning how to get there.
The tank is already three quarters empty when I get outside the city. I stop at a gas station. I buy a plastic packet of almonds and an energy drink. I am going to get addicted to caffeine again. I decided this when I made him a latte, and he told me that he can’t handle drinking coffee. “I will be tougher than you,” I think as I pluck it out of the fridge.
The woman at the checkout says something about how almonds give you cancer. I laugh and nod and say, “Thanks, enjoy the rest of your day.” It’s raining when I pull out of the parking lot, and my car makes a funny noise when I hit the brakes. I cannot risk stopping, I don’t trust myself to begin again. The song I’m listening to says I’ll know when the rain washes me clean. I must still be dirty. I get the sense I always will be.
“How do I get back to you?” I ask God quietly. God doesn’t say anything back to me. It’s this game we play, like how I text the man I love I miss him and he doesn’t reply for two days.
The caffeine is hitting and my palms are sweating. I drive further and imagine this is the first step I am taking towards forgiveness. I imagine where I’m headed is the promise of absolute, eternal purity. I think of all the things I’ve lost and how I never really got them back, I just forgot them and got better without trying.
I take the exit and park my car in the empty lot and climb the mountain and decide that yes, grace was the thing I’ve been needing. I follow the trail through the mud, slip on my right heel and sink into the patch of soft wet ground before me. My ankle twists. My legs buckle. I catch myself on a jagged rock and slice open the side of my palm. Maybe I needed to come here to be reminded of my mortality. I stand before the stream, listening for evidence of correctness in the sound of the trees.
This place is completely still, except for the pulse in my wrist and the water falling below me. I sit with wet cheeks and say to God, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been reckless. I don’t want to be”
I crawl from the rocks on my hands and knees. I press myself to stone, to soil. I don’t know where I am, it’s someplace I’ve never been. I sit heaving, bleeding, wet, asking God to make me clean. I don’t know anything except what I keep losing. I say I need more and he replies, “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been reckless, I don’t want to be.”