Unholy

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 I've been thinking a lot of when I drove to see you.


When my parents called I had just crossed the Arizona border,

and my mouth began to form the lie when I could feel the shrug in my breath.


"I had to do it. I had to try."


So I did. I poured gas into my car and drove.


The hotel was rundown and had a permanent layer of dirt.

You leaned against your car and I was caught in my words.


Inside you hovered above me while I stared at the ceiling and you brushed my hair away from my face and asked me why. I didn't have an answer and searched the cracked ceiling. 


I could feel my lip quivering and my throat tightening. 


There was a softness in your touch, your words. You told me never again, that you loved me, that it would all work out. And I thought, this is forgiveness. This is repentance. 


I felt a holiness in the way you held me. I sacrificed myself right there on the mountain top, the bed an altar beneath us.


But then I drove all those hours alone back over the Arizona border. My gas tank was empty and my balance was nearing zero. 


"Maybe we should take a break," your voice said over the phone, right before I crossed the threshold. 


And then I felt it. There was no sacrament. 


You've denied me three times,

but I've yet to hear the rooster crow. 



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