poetry

Since this week is my last week of chapels, likely ever, here is one from earlier this semester:

In Apology to Chapel Speakers

I listen to your stories

of rags-to-riches spirituality,

wonder what I could say

if called upon to speak

in front of thousands of slack-jawed twenty-somethings.

Would I be asked?

I could self-diagnose, talk about the redness

of depression, talk about how it feels

to mouth the vowels of loneliness.

Then I am each quivering girl

who ever spilled her soul

over in chapel, hoping to scare

up a smidgen of empathy, maybe a confession or two

later, in the quiet of the dorms.

We have heard it before.

I might talk about the words fear

not, how I don’t understand them -

pupils dilated, molars tight.

Then I am a narcissist, as though

my fears are different

from anyone else’s.

I should quote Jeremiah, talk about

plans, talk about goodness,

but I would not really know

what either one of those words

even means.