Stains

 As a girl you feared dropping the communion tray more than anything.  Not the one with the wafers, of course, but the wine tray, the one with the million thimble-sized cups that glittered up at you like galaxies.  You imagined the disaster unfolding as your pastor shouted the blood of Christ, shed for you: the tray tumbling out of your hands, flooding your Sunday clothes with the million sips of wine and ruining the seat and the carpet and the communion service.  Even when your parents admitted that the tray carried only Welch’s, nothing stronger, you still fretted, still thought if Jesus could turn water into wine then surely He could infuse sacred things into a plastic bottle #7.

            Maybe you should have dropped it, you realize now, staring at the broken glass that constellates the ground.  Maybe you should have bathed in the blood of Christ, watched it pool in the crooks of your elbows and trickle down your legs and seep under the arches of your feet.  Maybe then the stain would have stuck, would have purpled your insides, would have made you faithful.  Jesus said if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink, and you think Jesus didn’t understand how much drink you required.  I’m sorry, Jesus, you should have told Him.  I need too much.  I’m more indulgent than I like to think.

            You never dropped the communion tray, though, so here you stand.  Here you stand with glass around your shoes, shaking your head and apologizing for the shattered bottle.  I must be a little drunk, you tell your friend.  He wants to know how much beer you wasted and you can’t remember.  You remember a skinny brunette, someone-from-somewhere’s little sister, pointing to the lower fourth of the bottle and saying you wouldn’t get drunk until you got there.  You remember another girl warning you not to get there.  You remember swearing you would, your friend raising his bottle and shouting fuck her she’s not the god of you and you laughing and telling him I’ll finish it, I’m finishing it, alright.

            You dropped it. You glutted yourself with it and still couldn’t finish, too much you’ll realize the next morning; less than you wanted but more than you could handle.  You fail at gluttony, fail at filling the empty space inside you.  Whether you shoot Welch’s thimbles or shoot for the lower quarter of the bottle you can’t fill the void—evidenced by the sloshing in your stomach because full things don’t have wiggle room and the sloppiness of your words because they run away like prodigal goddamn sons and the slowness of drunk tears because every. fucking. time. 

Sometimes you feel like the only empty person in the room, the only one who can suck down so much juice and alcohol and even—you remember why your mouth tastes like a campfire—cigarette smoke and not think, voila!, here I am!, this is my color!  You are an empty glutton, trying to fill yourself in but only making a mess.  So you smile at a boy until he hands you his beer, hoping against hope that this drink will be the one that stains.