From Day to Night

A Poem About a Prayer I'd Long Ago Given Up On...

I’m bewildered by it, 
Your existence. 

I’ve wandered through wilderness- 
Decades of aimless confusion. 
Stumbling through,
Auctioning my ambition,
New excuses for new failures,
Saying things I didn’t believe to people who didn’t believe in me. 

I never learned to pray.
But (and maybe this is my first miracle) I still gave it a shot once or twice.
Not for board games or basketball.
For big shit.
Dark days.
Loss.
Moments I begged for a reprieve.
When I wanted to be anywhere else in the fucking universe but here.
When I was at peace with leaving it all behind me, but had nowhere to go.
I prayed then.

I prayed for an Angel to save me. 
To take me far away from the world that tormented me. 

I imagined her swooping down, wings spread in a glowing silhouette against bright white light. 
I imagined her embrace. 
I imagined the wind in my hair as we flew away from all I’d ever known.
I imagined how freeing it would feel. 

My Angel remained an unanswered prayer. 
I’d wandered alone for so long that I’d forgotten I’d ever asked for help.
And then one day you were here. 

And since the moment of our first embrace you’ve carried me away, 
My soul now miles and miles from the world that stole my spirit. 


We’re not in heaven yet-
But we may as well be. 


I’m haunted by the harmony of our reflections. 
Each time my eyes adjust I see the evidence of age in my face, 
And the brilliance of your consecrated beauty. 
And with each change I’m reminded: 

We’re further from where I was, 
But closer to a destination. 

It still blows my mind that you’re here, 
A living representation of the power of prayer. 
And though I dread the day you inevitably let me go, 
I’d sign up for this ride in every lifetime. 

From day to night, you bring me to an end.

---

---

I’m actually having a bit of trouble writing about what this poem means to me.

Not because I have any particular difficulty with it, but because I just have that voice in my head saying “no one is going to get it”.

I’m going to share it anyway. Here’s the context:

When I was a child someone I loved very much died. We were in the car on our way to see this person when my mom got the phone call that we were too late, she was already gone. I laid in the back seat pretending to sleep so I wouldn’t have to hear my mom repeat to me what I already knew was true.

I laid there in my grief for what was gone.

My young mind was already fractured by trauma by this point, and the number of safe people in my life was absurdly small.

And now one less.

The song Angel by Jimi Hendrix played over the car radio. I listened, and decided that’s what I wanted. I wanted an Angel to come and take me away from all of this.

I prayed silently in the back seat while tears rolled down my face, hoping no one would notice.

---

Late in my thirties I hold a puffy newborn to my chest, and she stares into my soul.

For a moment, we connect in a way that I can only describe as spiritual.

The perspective I’ve held my entire life is replaced in an instant.

I start to weep as I realize the Angel I’d prayed for all those years ago is here.

As moments become days, months, and years I’m further convinced.

But also faced with painful daily reminders of the passing of time,

And the realization that our journey together in this world is

temporary.

---