Church in January

Vivian Dong

It is a Sunday morning in January, and I am going to church. Icy gusts blow in through open doors, On the news, they say it’s cold enough to kill. I pull my coat closer to my chest, the one you gave me for my twenty-eighth birthday It still makes me laugh, how all these years later you’re still keeping me warm. Alone in the dark, I sit in the back of the pews, listening to an ancient priest talk about heaven and hell and sinners and saints. With folded hands, I listen in deep silence. Engulfed in this echoing voice, I think about you. They are all praying away their sins, trying to be purified to gold. But I am only praying only for you. Somewhere along the way, you became my religion. You with you golden hands, And your lovely face turned up to the sun. I am not sure when you became my savior, but I do know that I am now your apostle, destined to follow you until the end of time. We used to mock the pious, call them silly for trudging to church in the cold and the rain and believing in imaginary men sitting in the sky. But now, I am sitting in church on a Sunday morning, And I haven’t missed a sermon since you left. I get it now, needing something to believe in. We stand together in shadowy rows, heads bowed in the dark, hands close to our chests. surrounded by believers, I search for something that is true. I pray I’ll be forgiven, that my sins will be washed off, and I’ll be loved once more. Please don’t mock me,