i light a candle but my hands shake and the line presses up behind me until i get so anxious about standing in the way that i forget who to pray for. the heat gets too close to my fingertips. i shake out the match and hurry along and hope God understood better than i.

i remember these steps but only after i walk them, like deja vu on a six-second delay, turning a corner before i remember, a past me once stood there. like walking through a cold spot and remembering a ghost of a past self. how many ghosts have you forgotten. how many do you wish you could forget.

sometimes it feels like i go to new cities and new countries just for the churches. just to sit in pews i didn’t grow up in and see how many things i can still recognize. i am envious of little girls who grew up skipping through these aisles. do they realize how magical their beginnings were.

a magical beginning is the worst beginning to all except those who have them. the rest of us hold up our mundane beginnings and spin them around in the watery light and wonder why we were robbed of the fairy tale. the ones with the magical beginnings insist everyone’s beginning is magical and that we shouldn’t be comparing. this doesn’t stop us from comparing. it just makes us resent the magical ones even more.

i light a candle and send my prayer too late, the six-second delay where my mouth is moving but no sound comes out until it’s late and i’m alone on a street corner wondering how many past selves i’m leaving behind like breadcrumbs. is anyone following the trail. how does the new life begin when we have used up our beginnings.

xx,
M.