But I’ve tried several doors anyway. Once, my grandmother
found me next to an empty bottle of pills and pumped me
clean herself. Come morning, churches had popped up
inside the problem. Self-harm, preacher said, was yanking
my Christ-self from my body like a tooth. Grandmother’s
face was a fragile piece of China. One more helping
of sorrow, and she would crack beneath the weight. She
taught me how patience didn’t weigh anything. Rubbed
my back all night like I was still six, though I was sixteen
and still afraid to fall asleep. Her two hands limped like
wounded deer across a frozen field. Her two hands holding
all of misery, or life, or hope, or religion. It was hard to tell.
