Atheist’s Prayer

A poem

Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

Some mornings, I wake up from my temporary amnesia and remember that my father is dead.

Some days, my head is a petri dish of all the ugly things I wish antibiotics had the ability to destroy.

Most nights, I hate that the mind is a pseudoscience, and that my skin seems to itch for no reason when “I lay me down to sleep” “god is… good, god is… great” my father used to say.

I couldn’t betray my atheism for a dying man, to accept something my heart rejects, that would be so un-Jesus of me.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, but sometimes it’s fun to play pretend that “if I should die before I wake” my father will get angry with Jesus, tell him it’s too soon, a mistake.

But if god is Jesus and Jesus is god, then maybe if I call Skittles antidepressants enough times, I’ll believe it, and my mind can be cured.

I don’t pray any deity my soul to take, I just want a good night’s sleep not to claw at my skin as my eyelids droop and a dream about death settles in.

Maybe the realest believers think this is punishment for my sin of not believing in anything – god, prayer, an afterlife.

Maybe they scoff at the way I can swallow Skittles and actually feel okay because my mind says so

while my dad took chemo and radiation only for his tumors to grow.

With every nerve blocker, opioid and sedation, there was someone by his side, praying.

Neither meds nor Jesus could ease my father’s pain and I’ve swallowed enough of life’s false hope, it’s a wonder I haven’t choked.

I mean no disrespect, but my Skittles regimen is really no different than prayer.

We all have to swallow some sort of sugar pill to feel better about this life.

Let’s entertain the idea that my father is out there, somewhere I wonder if he’s bored and will ask Jesus my soul to take away from this earth so he can have someone to hang out with.

He refused to pass unless I was in the room, maybe he needs companionship in a kingdom free of gloom where people can still miss those from the before-life.

These are the things I contemplate at 2am before I swallow my Skittles and lay me down to a sleep in no one’s name I pray for a lighter day just this once.

Amen.