I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far.
After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.
I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet.
I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe He’ll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn’t grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me.
I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself.
I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset.
Call me bitter if you want to—that’s fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.”
If an explanation would help, He would write me one—I know it. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between us—and I don’t want to argue with God. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms.
I remind myself that I’m praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn’t pray. For forty years, their shoes didn’t wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven.
I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didn’t pray. I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means “what is it?”
That’s the same question I’m asking—again, and again. There’s mercy here somewhere—but what is it? What is it? What is it?
I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my mother’s crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. It’s not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. It’s a prayer I don’t mean yet, but will repeat until I do.
Call me cursed, call me lost, call me scorned. But that’s not all. Call me chosen, blessed, sought-after. Call me the one who God whispers his secrets to. I am the one whose belly is filled with loaves of mercy that were hidden for me.
Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there—even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true.
If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.
Head, pressure, senses, clutch
Date, divinity, wouldn't ****
Touched, hazy, God, change
Rush, floor, life, veins
Head, pressure, senses, clutch
Date, divinity, wouldn't ****
Touched, hazy, god, change
Rush, floor, life
From a head full of pressure
Rests the senses that I clutch
Made a date with divinity but she wouldn't let me ****
I got touched by a hazy shade of "God, help me change"
Caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins
From a head full of pressure
Rests the senses that I clutch
Made a date with divinity but she wouldn't let me ****
I got touched by a hazy shade of god, help me change
Caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins
It goes, one for the cannabis and two for your Dianetics
Three for your reasoning and four for those that try and get it
Five for your love and six for the stress
And seven for the day that I climbed into this mess
From a (head) full of (pressure)
Rests the (senses) that I (clutch)
I made a (date) with (divinity) but she (wouldn't) let me (****)
And I got (touched) by a (hazy) shade of (God), help me (change)
And caught a (rush) on the (floor) from the (life) in my (veins)
I'm catching ulcers from the childproof lighters
And all of these fine-toothed biters
That keep the wires in my head tighter
I'm tired out by the distances achieved walkin' in my sleep
Floors got shifted since the high got a tad too deep
Ask Dad to keep cool, I'll call him back
Soon as I resume normal, and get out of this bathroom
And call management to seek some reimbursement
For the nerve endings that burnt from the first hits
From a head full of pressure
Rests the senses that I clutch
Made a date with divinity but she wouldn't let me ****
I got touched by a hazy shade of "God, help me change"
Caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins
Head full of pressure
Rests the senses that I clutch
Made a date with divinity but she wouldn't let me ****
And I got touched by a hazy shade of "God, help me change"
Caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins
So **** needles, **** smoke
**** lines that make the sinus choke
**** chasers and trails, **** raves and rails
**** hangovers, **** hallucinations
Regurgitations, mandatory sentences
And UA tracin'
Blind my insight and dull the common sense
Give me inhibition, kill the superstition and the confidence
Built a tolerance, now it's more that I consume
And when it boards up my room
The world's whores will croon in unison
Unify the eulogy
Autopsy pages read euthanasia i.e. irony
Well here I be within a pool of my drool, sedated
Windows dilated, comatose, life overdose
Tell Jacob Miles keep it wild-style
I promise I'll smile
And check the floor, God's got nice tile
Tell Jacob Miles keep that **** wild-style
And I'll smile, and check the floor
God's got nice tile
From a head full of pressure
Rests the senses that I clutch
Made a date with divinity but she wouldn't let me ****
And I got touched by a hazy shade of "God, help me change"
Caught a rush on the floor from the life in my veins
From a (head) full of (pressure)
Rests the (senses) that I (clutch)
I made a (date) with (divinity) but she (wouldn't) let me (****)
And I got (touched) by a (hazy) shade of "(God), help me (change)"
Caught a (rush) on the (floor) from the (life) in my (veins)
Head, pressure, senses, clutch
Date, divinity, wouldn't, ****
Touched, hazy, God, changed
Rush, floor, life