Hey, God.

uh...You're supposed to say "hi" back now?

Hello?

*sigh*

Look, I know that things have kinda...sucked...lately. And I know that's my fault. I'm a person and imperfect and all of that. I'm sorry.

Ok, so I'm not REALLY sorry. Not in the "I hereby repent of all my wickedness and shall sell all of my belongings and move to deepest darkest Africa to pray for the pagans" sense of the word.

I'm not even sure what sense of the word I DO mean it; come to think of it. It's just...the thing to say when you're friends with someone and haven't talked in a long time. And, well, we haven't really talked, so, You know. . . .

Are you even there, or am I talking to Your answering machine? My dad's there, isn't he? He's listening to this whooooole thing and laughing at me.

Maybe he's missing me? Cuz I really, really miss him, God. I miss him like . . . like there's no description.

Every time I try to talk to You these days, he comes up somehow. And that hurts. So, uh, that's kinda why I haven't been talking to You. If I don't think, junk doesn't come up, and so it can't hurt.

At least not perceptively.

Until now, when I find my heart so simultaneously hardened and eroded that I don't recognize it at all and it scares me.

Where did the hope go?

Where did love go?

.....where the heck did YOU go???

GOD!!! ABBA!!!! I'M TALKING TO YOU DOWN HERE, DO YOU EVEN CARE?!

*pants*

That's an honest question. I'm not saying it to be cliche. I mean it. Do You care? Do You give a flying fig?

I cuss sometimes; does that horrify You?

Does that guy horrify you?

Are you horrifiable? Maybe horrify isn't the right word, but it's what's in my head right now. It seems that's the reaction I get from people who claim you.

Well, actually, it's the reaction I expect to get. Lots of them don't know. A few of them just look at me like I'm the little lost sheep. Poor silly Naomi, went astray and found a briar patch. Tsk tsk. Let's pray her out of it, boys and girls.

Yeah, pray me out of this while you stay in your happy little bubble of nonreality, where your love is ineffective because it bounces back in your face off the spring loaded smiley faced trampoline walls you build. Pray harder, everyone, because that version ain't gonna cut it this time.

Ew. Ok, God, I really am sorry about that one. Bitterness is something You don't appreciate, that much I know. And it's not supposed to grow in me. I don't think I knew that was there....at least, not like that. Yikes.

.....the artifice has gotta get to You too, though, right?