Pews line the aisles like words line a book. Thousands of options, yet I still can’t bring myself to take a seat. Eyelids closed shut, people finding their answers in a man who knows them all. I close mine only to see the darkness of my disbelief. I listen for the voices of my loved ones, the ones who haven’t made it as far as I have, but radio silence intoxicates my ears. Dozens of little flickers fill the dark spaces representing lost ones, hopes, and promises. The lighter in my purse becomes dead weight when I find it both physically and mentally impossible to use. So what does it all mean that I can’t seem to breathe in church? Is the devil clenching my lungs with his wretched fist, laughing as I choke for the words to say? Is he piercing my ears with a dagger making it impossible for me to listen to some sort of holy wisdom? Is he blinding me to the point where I’m looking straight into the light but I cannot see it? Or am I just the epitome of the devil himself, too soaked in sin to penetrate the gates to heaven, left forever to bathe in the hot abyss of Hell.