in christian school

you are taught to pray to god

jehovah

yahweh

jesus, christ, savior

i prayed to every name of god imaginable

every way i could address him was given

i pray to you now

in that same sense

an odd disconnection it is,

to talk to your father like you’d talk to a deity

 

it’s been a year since you left

and i have only just begun to know you

i search netflix

rummaging through its mess of a treasure bin

trying to find german horror movies

stand up comedy

anything to remind me of you

 

i care about math

suddenly

because the god that i pray to now

understood it

as a beauty

a favorite thing

put calculus on a pedestal

algebra was a celebrity

 

and now that you are gone

it feels as if i have been given more room to love you

to be like you

 

i have been given the torch

to carry out the passions and achievements

that were sitting in the back of your brain’s file cabinets

on top of your desk

or even in an unfinished google doc

 

i will go to your college

i will learn to love math

i will talk to you how i can

i will love the people who loved you

and i will not forget your purposes

for gods always have them