Saint Peter I ask you to speak to me in these trying times

I give bread to those who let me ride on their backs when my feet ache. My hands are so large and my nails like daggers, I pick the salmon up out of the stream and I hand it to you: This is one of the few things I can give to you outside of remembrance. His heartbeat will bleed into yours until you find it unworthy. I value you that much. A body and mind built up by the Great Creator that whispered a simple request to me in the night time. I can’t do anything with this burden. I’m thinking about you all over, I built you up. We run the same.

Peter waits for me at the bottom of the mountain and asks me if I’m doing okay. I sit and I stare at the ground and I pick up my right foot and put it back down harshly to see the dirt move. Visions of swirling clouds colored the prettiest oranges and reds and the shiniest rocks balancing my feet atop the ground, while this is happening the sights move in and out and around my eyeballs and I ask him if everything is so close to him the way it is to me. The whole time I’m only thinking of the way his lungs are opening and closing at the same rate the trees are coming in and out of focus. Palm sweat and heartbeat and his eyes widen so big that you’d think there was something real scary happening behind me. These are real things people feel for. Peter sits me down and tells me I need to drink some water and I drink from his palm. My eyes are closed and it’s the hand of God for just a minute. With my eyes closed it’s still orange with all things good and right and warm.

I think of the rocks and the grass and the tree beside me that are watching us play this game. He extends his hand and I grab onto it. I used to think that there was something inherently sinful about getting what I wanted. Proximity was a collection of swords and knives and daggers all for which I was obsessed with practicing but for all I knew I could end up hurting someone. It was forbidden even when I grabbed it by the handle. I wanted things I could never have. I’m digging my nails into his hands and he’s letting the blood dribble so long as I can get up off the ground. The dust moves regardless, trees move with the wind, I don’t let go until I have to.

I drink from his hands because I remember how good it felt the first time that I did it. A softness pulled out of thin air that I may never get back. I learn to love the right side of your brain, I learn to love you. That pillow is cold and so bitter and the warmth on your cheeks when your head hits the fabric makes a sound that only I would know is real. I never learned how to draw but the clock turns so slow when you breathe in and out so now I wish that I did. I keep you there because I have to. There is no other way. In dreams I don’t wake you out of fear that you might disappear. When I close my eyes your back stays turned and the orange is so bright I hold my hands above my forehead on reflex.

I never saw him cry but I tried to get him to drink from my hand and it sometimes worked. I’d extend my fingers and stretch them wider and longer until the space in his mouth was all flesh. I watch you slide down on rocks that scrape your forehead, hands, feet. I breathe you into the verses of poetry books trying to make hands holding onto the pages that I will know very instinctually are not my own. I try and I try and I try. I listen and I listen and I listen. I often wished for Peter to be as scared as I was. In times where it mattered I could hear his heartbeat and I think of that fish and what he did with it. Soft skin pulling on softer skin and the blood keeps dribbling until you make it stop.

I let him hold it, I knew his fingers weren’t as rough as mine but I let him hold it. There’s a bird that stays outside of my house on weekdays and will sing until another bird calls back. Oh Peter, I beg for your forgiveness in similar ways I must imagine those who tie sandbags to their calves beg at the feet of God. The gate is open. Swing, swing by. I’ll keep begging until I see your mouth opened.

Tell me, do you hear that sound?