Dear God,

 

My synapses are firing like the bombs over Dresden.

Mother pushes petals off of daisies,

The green berets seem to have taken a sick day.

I heard the Christmas parade came three days early,

Which means there’s only nine days of Christmas.

I heard the kids at the synagogue no longer light the candles on the menorah.

They tore the Torah apart.

Sang to me,

In low voices that broke when they reached the threshold of prepubescent deepness.  

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

If that’s the case.

Tell me why the children’s hospital has a dedicated space for the terminally ill.

Tell me why those windows ought to be pictures because nothing ever changes.

Tell me,

God,

Why those white walls are so pure like the abnormal white blood cells metastasizing in her veins.

Tell me why her mother has to buy her daughter a snowman bandana.

They’re filming another commercial today.

For just a dollar a month,

You could save her life.

Instead,

You gave her 11 dollars and some change,

Not in her prognosis,

But in her death sentence.

She’s no longer able to smile.

Broke her spirit in chemotherapy,

She coughs in her sleep,

Tells her mother it keeps her from dreaming.

She wants her own set of curls,

But instead she gets locks of love,

They shackle her to the reality of her situation,

This hospital room is where she’ll spend this Christmas.

And Christmas will eventually become the rest of her life.

She lost her appetite at stage one.

It’s gotten progressively worse,

Her mother can no longer look at her without breaking down.

She considers breaking up with you.

Dear god,

She starts her prayers every night at her daughter’s bedside the same way,

Dear God,

If you could open your ears,

She’s been calling out to you for years now.

But she never gets a reply.

Dear God,

She needs your help,

Please save her daughter.

She would ask Santa Claus but she’s afraid he’ll give her an obituary for Christmas.

Dear God,

She’s cut her hair so her daughter doesn’t have to feel alone.

While you can’t even show your face.

Dear God.

December 25th seems like another pitstop on the road to the conclusion of her epitaph,

Is there any way you could stop her name from becoming an epigraph on the walls of the corridor where she takes her last steps?
She’s been in physical therapy for the last six months.

They teach her breathing exercises as if it’ll prepare her for her last breath.

Her last dance.

She would love to with her father again.

But the apple never seems to fall too far from the tree,

It runs in the family.

He is supposedly watching her from the pearly gates.

She tells her mother it’s the reason it’s been snowing lately.

Unseasonably so.

She used to make snow angels with him while sipping hot chocolate from Charlie Brown mugs.

Her mother doesn’t think she’s old enough to understand,

Until her daughter asks her if it’s the reason mommy’s eyes have not stopped raining for the last two months.

She hands her a piece of paper adorned in crayon and marker,

Her best rendition of a parasol,

She couldn’t pronounce umbrella.

She’s never had shade from the truth.

She’s listened in to mommy’s prayers that sometimes get too hard she can’t keep them between her and you.

She’s heard her mother hold back tears as the doctors take her into another room to tell her there’s nothing more they can do.

She knows,

That the balloons with “get better soon”

Written on them,

Are just false hope.

She knows she’s dying.

She can feel it when she wakes up.
Everyday she opens her eyes is treated like a miracle.

She stopped praying the day she realized this.

Sincerely,