2AM Existential Crisis

By Lindsey Cheng

Dear God,

I know we don’t see each other often
Or at all, really.

I know that I don’t ever come to Church
Even though Jesus stares up at me every day during art class
Contemplating me over his last supper.
Omnipotent in frescos, omnipresent throughout my textbooks,
Arms outstretched, beckoning.

I know that I lie when I tell others the story of
The first time I went to church
In pigtails and a dress,
Criss cross applesauce on a bleached carpet,
And heard, for the first time, of your son on a cross—
I lie about why I never went back.
Did the story of nails through the bones scare me?
Truthfully, not really.
I couldn’t feel real fear
If it simply never occurred to me that you existed
Outside of fables and myths I was told.

When I am told of the consequences, of the bonfires of Hell,
I think not of the suffering to be endured
But rather whether it will snow there,
On December 25th?

When I am told tales of the wonderments of Heaven,
I think not about the gates that will remain closed for me,
But rather if angels truly have trumpets and wings…
Does it snow there, too?

Though I have read the Bible,
I turned the pages only because
Nothing at my uncle’s party caught my eyes
And the holy book was the only book on his shelves.

When I go to Hell,
I imagine three-headed Cerberus guarding the gates,
Sisyphus groaning as he inches his rock upwards for the umpteenth time,
King Hades and Queen Persephone on ebony black thrones,
In the color palettes of royal blue and fuchsia from last week’s webtoon episode.

I imagine the fires of Hell burning lightning blue,
Because they surely burn hotter than the bombs in Israel
That blow children into hunks of flesh and melt the wrinkled faces of old men.

I imagine the screams of Hell, so loud that together they form a cacophonous silence,
Silenter than the corpses swept from Libya
Down, down, down into the deep dark Mediterranean Sea…

I imagine the chaos and brutality of Hell,
Worse than the fingers of fear woven through the young Taliban girl’s hair,
Far worse than the boy who fights wars in his own home,
And the turmoil that makes him drive to a nearby school with a gun—
Only to turn it on himself.

If this is the fleeting world we live in,
I wonder what macabre regime eternal Dark Zeus rules by.
Or should I say Satan?

If politicians on earth have seven faces,
I wonder how many faces the creatures of Tartarus have.
Are three-faced Hecate and Cerberus angels of the Underworld?

Or perhaps none of it exists.

Sisyphus is nothing more than a myth
and so is the realm of Hades
So why can’t the realm of Satan’s be too?

Who but God can say that Hell truly exists?

“But it does,” whispers the black-eyed devil on my shoulder.
“You know it does.”