god was a box of cheerios



it was supposed to make me happy, going to that white box
every week with a smile in my heart so i could win something
like the rims of the cups of coffee i wasn’t allowed to drink
he loved me, they told me, like my cat
or my mom
or a thing i could touch and smell and cry with
i believed, like little girls believe in fairies
the magical dust they spread over the heads of people
from their perches in the clouds, far away, where we can’t see them


because they think it makes them happy to imagine beauty


when all they really want is something real


so i would stuff the dark into a little jar


and keep it in a little jar in my closet


buried under the blankets and board games and jesus drawings


and i put on my glasses, every single day


the ones with flowers in the lenses



and i looked down my nose at others, the plastic sunlight pooling around my legs


while at the same time i needed a latte packed full of confidence


they didn’t teach you to say “i love you” at the white box


not to the people you really loved, who really mattered


only the people who had the right clothes and the right hair


the people whose teeth glowed like the angels on the castles in faraway cities


but those people weren’t going to listen


they’d nod their heads in rhythms like the waves of the oceans i longed to see


and whisper lies in staccato


oh yes, they could do all that


but they weren’t going to let me sob with them over shots at 4 am


or talk about the dark things like it was nothing


they would never eat cheetos with me in the park


and watch the birds fly back to their nests


while the rain fell onto our faces, forming shapes like


the tears it apparently made jesus cry when i thought about kissing a boy


love isn’t a cookie cutter that only fits certain people, you see


there’s room for everyone in the 400-degree oven of this s***ty f***ing life


the life that eats us up and spits us out like sour milk


but that we can still learn to love and cherish after we’ve read all the books


not just the leather mormon book


so when i woke up in that closet, where the dark used to be


and i felt the velvet gag in my mouth,


i got up, took out the blinding shiny thing


and left the white box forever


on my way out, i swore and kicked things and screamed


i ran away in terror and despair


all of the above is true, yes


but as i ran, the freezing late-night grass making my feet numb


i started to realize, for the first time


that maybe,


just maybe


we weren’t all cheerios


but instead we were froot loops, in a whole rainbow of colors


people who were brown, white, yellow, pink, blue, red


who lived in jungles and cities and islands caressed by cold mist


people who had blue hair and piercings on their faces


and people who loved their gay sons enough to let them move in on short notice


it’s a great big box of cereal out there, you know


beauty is found in the dark things sometimes


the flaps of the box that haven’t been torn open yet


so read all the books


drink all the drinks


eat all the sandwiches


and let the scars fade


chase the waves until the sun falls asleep


and do it with the person who makes you feel good


till you both can’t stop laughing


and then can’t stop crying


whoever that person may be


because hey,


you know what?


they probably never told you this at the white box


but the emptiness of outer space, the blackness punctured only by little lights,


that’s exactly what makes it so beautiful.


coffee is black, too


and who knew it was actually delicious?


if you ever need me, for anything, ever


call me, i’ll answer, i promise


and we’ll go sit down at the coffee shop and talk


the white box can’t do that for you, can it?