[Just Don't Know]

**Inspired by the spoken word performance I went to last night and the conversation that followed.**

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Prayer is a litany

a liturgy---

the work of the people.

Prayer is words

no, more than words--

a conversation.

I squeeze out words through my teeth,

out of my fingertips.

Sometimes onto paper--

mostly into the dense air

hoping that maybe, just maybe

I'll hear a voice.

Hoping maybe, just maybe

a bush will turn ablaze.

Prayer--

the work of the people.

Prayer--

not just soft words spoken to the immense

sky up above

or to the back of my eyelids

trying to find God wherever I can

to tell her how I feel...

saving it for a moment that is just between us

because no one else understands.

Not just sweet whispers

Sometimes firm demands

Sometimes angry shouts

Sometimes painful tears

... too painful to speak.

We try to make meaning--

cuz that's what we're told.

We try to hold back tears--

cuz that's what we're told.

"Why?" they ask.

Why?
Why?

Go ahead and ask my "Why?" one more time--

because for the last time I'll tell you...

I JUST DON'T KNOW.

I don't know why it hurts.

I don't know why this joy has me beaming.

I don't know why life has people stuck in vicious cycles

of oppression and violence.

I don't know.

Can't that be enough?

Prayer--

my litany.

my liturgy.

my words.

My sometimes soft, sometimes angry

words.

My hopes, fears, joys, doubts, desires, pain, struggle.

My words.

For when I don't have the words.

But I am confident.

They're Gods words too.

She feels... this... too.

Above all else

my prayer-- my words--

are our words.

They acknowledge that this pain

these desires

these hopes

....are real.

For all of us.

one people.

bound together.

by God.