I hide behind a silver cross that hangs from my neck,

My grandmother’s,

Because here atheism is a shameful word.

But it’s true, I don’t believe in God.

I don’t believe things are “meant to be,”

Which implies destiny,

Our lives preordained,

Written out like a sermon,

Events strung like beads on a rosary.

I believe in birth, not baptism;

Science, not salvation;

Atoms and people bouncing against each other.

I keep faith in the chasm, the universe,

Between what could have happened,

And what did, what is.

I live in awe at the infinite unlikelihood

Of this moment,

The outcome of every uncontrolled variable,

The combination of every event,

That led up to this.

Nothing separates me from disaster, from burning up,

But if I do I am supernova.

If every life is on a tight rope,

I’ve removed my net,

Knowing there is nothing after my fall.

I celebrate in knowing

Nothing is certain,

Nothing is set.

This is beauty. This is blasphemy.

So I let the cross hang on me,

So they don’t hang me on the cross.