what does a sinner pray for?

God,

You must remember me from a while ago.

To be precise,

a year and 5 very bittersweet months.

my face has changed since then

do you recall how my countenance

twisted in guilt and shame;

I am terrible at being a daughter,

You, who gave me my mother.

Woes, woes,

I have moved past thinking 

they are all I am made of.

I grew out of my mother's wider pout

for my father's thinner lips;

although I grieve every now and then for the change.

And well,

I grew into my mother's

eclectic eccentricities in living,

having adopted a few new friends,

and a crowd of admirers;

I beseech You,

who amongst them might be

the man my younger sister dreamt for me?

Life is still so very strange, 

and the ambiguity only seems to grow with time.

What is this life for?

I, who have never known.

And I saw what they did to Nepal,

and all the floods that followed.

Yet, here I am,

wondering why I was so lonely

trying to sit upright with my lost dignity,

fear ambushing me against the north wall of my apartment.

And in the loneliness and loss of life,

why was the air so heavy and silent?

Why couldn't I claim Your company mine?

And all that the world did was

move on

and who was I to resent the moving?

For when it was time, I moved along with them,

Having reached home, by flight,

not knowing whose body slept on my bed.

Heavier was the morning I woke up to,

so bright and airy and lacey,

sun drawing patterns on my ceiling,

sparrows singing all the songs they know,

and selfish, I couldn't be,

to the internal destitute ---

and so,

I let go.

Yet now my hands are reaching,

this very monotonous cycle of life.

Wanting for change that I had once

so vehemently opposed.

Now, head nodding obstinately,

for my fingers want something to hold, 

allowing the pain, the fight for wisdom,

the living against all odds before the dying.

Still, yet,

What is this life for?

I do not yet know. 

And I could ask You to hold my hand,

would be, perhaps, the 100th time.

With the hope that I will not be left bare,

Like I felt on the 99th.

Though I believe in all the prayers my mother sends,

my feet are still so very hesitant.

And I hear no call for my legs to move,

perhaps I have grown deaf and aloof.

Well, life has yet been,

a series of daunting chores,

and still yet,

What is this life for?

I might never know.

lo