I used to pray for a faith that wouldn't prove facade
a savior that thought me as something sacred enough to not be
scarred
I prayed hard.
thinking that the tighter I clasped
my fist
the more God I could squeeze out.

But No one taught me how to pray.

My mom was too scared to even enter a church

My grandma knew jesus turned water into wine

And thought she could find him again in the bottom of a bottle

And my dad answered my calls just as much as god did

So I prayed like everyone else.

Too much

And not enough

Then i noticed a trend

I spent so much time on knees

That i forgot what i should be standing up for

I forgot sermons and sacrifice don't always satisfy

Especially when prayer isn't done for both sides.

The thing about some people's prayers

Are that they are half empty glasses of holy water

Pessimistic and partial

Partisan pipe dreams

Meant to save from sin

But who do they really pray for?

It is said to love thy neighbor

But sometimes our prayers do not always touch thy neighbor.

Like homophobia does

like islamophobia does

like racism does

like sexism does

 

How can some people hope

For sunshine and rainbows

And then have the nerve to pray the gay away?

Hands who worship like Westboro

Wield hypocrisy

And a hatred not suitable for holy

They’ll pray for their daughter

To find a husband she’ll love

But take back their god

If she loves her wife more.

They’ll pray

that their son

grows up to be anything but their daughter

then slaughter her like a lamb as a sacrifice to bring him back

But by all means pray

 

Some of us are still praying for 9/11 victims

But which ones?

When manhattan mimicked

a sodom and gomorrah war zone

And 2 pillars of salt came crashing down in a

holy mess of terror

We prayed for the lives lost to

Jet fuel

And rubble

Yet not the ones who are still covering their heads

From the licks of fiery tongues

Where are the prayers for the muslims?

Some of us are still praying against terrorism

But from whom?

Some of our prayers do not differentiate

The murderer and the murdered if their God is the same

If their dialect deems demolition to our deity.

 

We’ll send prayer to our soldiers in the middle east

But the brown bodied war on both sides of the ocean

Must be too blasphemous for beseechment

But by all means pray

 

Some people’s prayers only come in the form of white male

Where are the prayers for the black women?

For the black moms

With spines like bibles

And feet like arks

who spend all their prayers

Making sure the horizon does not swallow their sons before sunrise

 

Pray for the black women who get preyed on

who get choked by the cracks in the concrete

And scream like chainsaws

But their deaths still speak in whispers

Please pray for the the black men

But pray more for the black girls

With ribs like Adams

And faces like Aiyana.

Renisha

Sandra

pray for the black girls with mental illnesses without praying off their mental illnesses

Pray for the black girls that were taught to pray for you.

Before some secular sinister

Makes a grenade out of a 16th baptist church

and 4 little girls who are dressed like easter

Right before Columbus Day

But by all means pray.

 

I don’t want to discourage your prayers

But if you choose to keep holy in your fingertips

Make sure your nails are clean.

Make sure all your graces to god

Speak in multiple tongues

Don’t just preach to the choir

Without singing for the unsung

by all means pray

But make sure your prayers encompass everyone.