An Act of God.

I like that humans place meaning on everything

Like the door that closes seemingly on its own on a windy day is a ghost or a sign from god

A butterfly in summer becomes a dead loved one reaching out from beyond the grave to show you you’re on the right path

We love to ask for a sign

We want to be told what to do, what decisions to make 

But, in that, everything becomes a sign

Because we are looking

But, how beautiful 

To see a mundane fact of life and assign meaning to it

To abandon all logic for proof of love

To create religion in order to escape death and existentialism

What a lovely thing

Belief

Hope

To see shiny things

To answer “what are we doing here?” and “where do the dead exist?”

It’s hard to think about it

It drives one mad to think there isn’t life after death

I believe in ghosts for the sake of it

It’s too hard to look at death logically

No one can just stop being a person, right?

Energy can not be created or destroyed, right?

So, for us, it goes in the butterflies and the eagles and the wind and the stars

The closing doors on a windy day

The shadows in our peripheral vision

The smudges in flash photos

We exist in patterns, routines

Schedules we create to keep ourselves busy, to stop us from from thinking too hard

A neat, straight line to avoid spiraling out of control

(at least most of us do)

So a minor deviation from routine becomes a sign from god

Maybe that’s why there are prophets

Assigning meaning in the deviations of life’s schedule

It’s easier for someone else to tell us, isn’t it?

Then you still have routine and you didn’t do anything wrong 

It’s not a flaw, it’s god telling you something

I'm not a very religious person

Even I like to blame god from time to time

I didn’t mean for this to be about religion

Unfortunately meaning is intertwined with it, isn’t it?

I swear one time when I was much younger I thought existentially enough to where I felt myself pulling out of reality

(baby's first panic attack)

I think I was around 12 - I was sitting in my mom's car in the CVS parking lot waiting for her to finish shopping

It's funny looking back now, to a time where accompanying your parent to their "just one thing" errand warranted the subtle act of rebellion of waiting in the car

I wondered if any of this was real

It felt like if I kept trying to decode it I would be enlightened into whatever I almost disappeared in

I fought it because I like living here

I like doubting everything, I like searching for love in every corner and crack, I like breathing

the air here

I like the feeling of my feet on the ground, I like wondering if the wind was a ghost

I like not knowing

The infinite mystery

The root of all poetry and all attempts of poetic-ness

Obviously I believe science - the big bang, evolution, etc.

But actually what the fuck:

emotions

empathy

pain

crying

laughing

pretending

growing

sex

drugs

rock and roll

cinema

decent literature

hair appointments

getting mad at your mom

coffee

art

politics

money

birthday cards

clothes

doing the dishes

taking out the trash

laundry

office jobs

friendships

enemies

lovers

and dying.

Aren’t we all just begging to be believed in?

Aren’t we all just fighting to be real?

Haven't we all said a prayer in desperate circumstances"just in case"?

All secretly hoping to be important enough to someone - at least one person would be enough - that upon our crucifixion they would build cathedrals

Hoping our lives were interesting enough for someone to write a book about

I'd even settle for a well-written poem

A letter not sent

And

When I am no longer remembered in the present-tense

For someone to believe I was the gust of wind that closed the door.