The day the flood came
I took one final breath
Opened my arms and
Surrendered the levee in my throat
The water came rushing in
Spilled into my lungs
Until the heartstrings snapped
And my ribcage busted open to
Release me

The waves
I can hear them crashing inside my chest
Press me to your ear
You can hear the ocean in my breath
It rolls and swallows
Curling around my stomach the way hunger used to
I couldn’t fight the hunger then
I couldn’t fight this now
Floating face down, I let the waves
Place me in its mouth
Carry me across that salty sea and
Wash me up on the front steps of
Your church

Through the window
I saw you
Pressed my wrinkled fingers against the stained glass
Watched as you clenched your eyes in prayer
Mumbling something about
A promotion and unpaid bills

I wonder
If you knew
That while you were
Praying to God
We were on the outside looking in
Praying to you

I wonder if you knew
God isn’t the one that performs miracles
People do.
You have always been the one
God works our miracles through

We
The forgotten
The children of rock bottom and broken concrete
Our existence scribbled in dirt and
Swallowed by the ocean

Do you see us?
Do you find our names in the middle of your prayers?

Washed up by the flood we have come
A sea of faces with
Sandbags beneath our eyes and
Water in our lungs
We are pounding our muddy hands against your church
The poverty in our fingerprints smudging every inch of stained glass
Have you noticed how sunlight can’t penetrate through?

And still
You wonder why the windows don’t shine like they used to
You wonder why church pews feel so hard on your knees

The weight of a nation forsaken
Laying so heavy on your shoulders
Breathing down your neck, that for
Every time you dip your fingers in holy water to genuflect
The reflection staring back are the faces of prayers you have yet to answer
Every time you bow down at the alter
The Eucharist melting on your tongue
Your shadow is the shape of children like me
Back bent searching for scraps of food behind restaurants

Did you know...
We make our living refrying those scraps
Then sell them to the people in our village?

Did you know...
We sometimes daydream of eating
Until the hunger pangs no longer hurt?

Did you know...
God has never counted
How many Sundays you've spent in church or
How well you've kept your sacraments or
How often you've tithed

The communion will always taste dry
If on your way inside
You ignore
Our starving eyes
Our tattered clothes
Our outstretched arms reaching towards your chest for
You are the miracle that could
Save us

Reach down
If you want to find God
Stop looking up
Look around...

Find him
In the shelters
In the makeshift homes
In the faces of children swallowing the flood they couldn’t outrun
Find him
In the eyes of the mother
Waste high in a sea of floating bodies
Praying to find her son

Tell her
You've found him
Standing on the outside looking in
Fingers pressed to glass

Tell her
How you opened the door
Dried his clothes
Cried his name in prayer so heaven may let him through

And there I will be
Waiting until the moment your own flood comes calling
I will see you
Washed up on heaven’s front steps
God standing at the gates asking if anyone can vouch for
Who you are

And I will step forward
My arms wide open
My skin still drenched
And I will tell Him
You are the reason
I am here.