The Confessional

Dear God,

et’s see. A bedtime prayer. Usually I would never. Because although it’s beginning to L seem like maybe prayer doesn’t really work, after the instances where I prayed for admission to that prep school and didn’t get in, and for Dad to stop smoking, and he didn’t, and for my team to win districts, and we didn’t, I will admit that one thing prayer is pretty good at is putting me to sleep. Super necessary now! Because honest to God, I may never sleep again. It’s been a day. I’m jittery as hell, and after about thirty minutes of just lying here I’m as awake as ever, and God damn it—ah!, darn it—I think I might also have to pee right now, just a little bit. It’s one of these cases where if I don’t pee now, I’ll probably have to at, like, 3 a.m.? And which is worse, peeing now or peeing later? To pee or not to be—that is the question. Not to pee! That is my answer. To sleep! Sleeeep. But now my foot is doing this twitchy thing. I don’t know, God… I might just be stressed about tomorrow’s history final ’cause if I don’t sleep tonight, there’s a chance I’ll forget something as basic as the year of the Louisiana Purchase (1803!) or the Annexation of Texas (1845!), and then I’ll get—God forbid—not an A, and my GPA will drop, and I’ll never get into college, and I’ll never get a good job, and, and—

O Father God, I praise and adore thee, Good Lord, for my daily bread, for my friends, for my parents’ money, which is apparently not enough for the boots, but it’s not nothing, and thanks, as well, for the roof over my head, and for this basically comfortable mattress, and obviously for Lucas del Mar, who, as You know, asked me out today, and I’m just as pleased as hell. Lucas! Del! Mar! Boy’s hot as eff, and me? I was so awkward, the way I was kind of baring my teeth at him, too afraid to smile, but too afraid not to smile, and peering at him through these half-open lids. Allison calls it my Pennywise smile. What did I even say? I can’t even remember now. I think I blacked out, I think I died. I guess I’ll be meeting his parents Friday, and I guess I might be a little nervous

they’ll be like, “This girl?” and that after that, he’ll dump me, and there will be no second date, and if that happens I will just shave my head—oh, right: prayer. Hehe. I’m comin’ back—back to the heart of worship! It’s all about you, Jee-sus.

So yeah. Thank you, God, for my family, for my loving parents, for my good health, but I guess not really for the health of Uncle Martín? Who just had that foot surgery—bless him, Lord, and grant him a speedy recovery—and then of course there’s Corey who was taken out of school for cancer, at least that’s what everyone’s saying. I mean? Cancer, at this age? Jesus… And everyone without homes and food who I saw in that documentary on YouTube, and like, are you even there God? I mean, what the honest hell? How can You be real in a world that’s so despicable? Are You even listening? You must not be. You must be a big nothing in the empty universe which began how exactly? If You are real, You had better have a good explanation for all this! I don’t know. Sometimes I get the sense that even though I’m at the top of my class, or almost at the top, right beneath that nerd Jeremy, this all might just be a little beyond my comprehension. 1803! 1845!

Christ, have mercy.