I drink what kills me because death feels honest. There's a silence between the swallow where I almost remember God, or something that hurt enough to be her. Maybe it's not death I want but the moment before it, the body remembering its origin, the mouth still wet with creation. She made me from the same salt she used to flood the world, and I keep mistaking her mercy for ruin. Sometimes I think pain is her language, and I was born fluent. Sometimes I think I am her echo, still trying to return to her throat.