Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

after one God.”
    â€œWell, why not? Why not run after one God?” I asked. “I mean obviously there are other gods in other religions and stuff but I think it’s all based on one God anyway. It’s just the interpretation that’s different.”
    â€œYes and no. The only thing we can really do, Juliet, is develop our own sustainable theodicies. You know? We need to create our own understanding of Divine presence in a world full of chaos. My God is Black. It’s queer. It’s a melody of masculine and feminine. It’s Audre Lorde and Sleater Kinney. My God and my understanding of God is centered on who I am as a person and what I need to continue my connection to the divine.” Maxine explained. She took a long breath. “It’s everyone’s job to come up with a theodicy. One that has room for every inch of who they are and the person they evolve into.”
    Harlowe snapped her fingers in agreement, the way people do when the spirit hits them at poetry slams. I wanted to tell Harlowe and Maxine about the time I met God. But I didn’t; I couldn’t. It was better to enjoy this silence. I tried to tell Lainie once. All I did was say that I knew for sure that God was real and it set off her debate team skills. You know, after she laughed and gave me that “Are you serious, babe?” face. She deconstructed the reasons why attempting to make God exist past the realm of faith and into the realities of the human world was absurd. We laid on her futon in the middle of her dorm room, surrounded by tea light candles. She argued that God couldn’t exist because God wasn’t made up of anything solid. God couldn’t be touched. God couldn’t walk into a supermarket and buy a gallon of milk. Lainie had a million reasons why God wasn’t real in the way that she and I were real. She explained that God was at best an elevated spiritual feeling and at worst one of the most brutal myths people have ever created.
    I let her talk and clamped my mouth shut. I held my truth in my throat. That moment between us hurt me. I kept that hurt to myself. I locked it inside my chest cavity. I laughed off its existence in front of Lainie. And then I fucked it away using her body and that futon as transport. I hadn’t thought about it since. In the truck with Harlowe and Maxine, it resurfaced. I wanted to blurt out all the wonder and magic, every detail of meeting God, but I didn’t.
    It wasn’t the right time and I didn’t know if there’d ever be a right time. Quiet settled in between the three of us. It found room between our hips and shoulders and uncrossed ankles. Harlowe flipped through a CD case, found what she was looking for, and slid a CD into the player. Some white girl rock song I’d never heard before blared through the speakers. The voice screeched and sang about a “rebel girl.” It sounded weird and I wasn’t sure if I liked it but it fit. This song about rebel girls somehow fit all three of us. Something inside of me clicked, like I was exactly where I needed to be in my life right in the truck with Harlowe and Maxine. I fell asleep against Harlowe and didn’t wake up until we got to where we were going.
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9. Ain’t No Party like an Octavia Butler Writer’s Workshop
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    The three of us walked into a small classroom. There were about 15 other people already in the room. Maxine was greeted by a woman draped in flowing, brightly colored cloths. Her limbs jutted out from between openings in the fuschias and limes in her fabrics. Her locs wrapped around themselves into a high, full bun. Maxine and the woman embraced. Their hug was deep with room for soft hellos and murmurings of “you look so peaceful.”
    Maxine turned to us. “Zaira, this is Juliet. She’s Harlowe’s research assistant and our houseguest. Juliet, this is Zaira.”
    I extended my hand. Zaira reached for it and pulled