Author’s Note
I wrote this for her — the one whose name feels like both prayer and sin.
Not to mock heaven, but to remind it what love looks like when it’s lived in human skin.
Because sometimes, faith isn’t worship. It’s defiance in the name of tenderness.
When I Fought God for Her
Poetry by Rowan Evans
You said—
you had a migraine again,
so I told you, I’d say a little prayer.
But if that didn’t work,
I’d go up there and make God
make it go away.
You laughed.
But I meant it.
I’d box deities
to take your pain away.
I’d throw hands with Gods
and Goddesses.
I’d walk right up,
like — “listen here,
you divine little prick.”
Catch him off guard:
“You might be God,
but you clearly got a little dick.
The way you wield little-dick energy.”
Go ahead—
smite me. (Coward.)
Just know—
you better be ready
to fight me.
“I said heal her, not test her—
you omnipotent coward.
Give her rest,
or I’ll rewrite your scripture myself.”
So I climb.
Not on a ladder of prayer,
but up a rope made of names I swear I’ll never say again—
each knot a vow, each loop a promise.
The sky cracks like an egg; thunder flinches.
Clouds part to watch the mess I’m about to make.
First I find the doorman to the heavens—
the one with a clipboard and a halo too small for his head.
He checks my grief like it’s a permit;
I hand him a bruise and a name.
He frowns, flips a page, tries to veto me.
I step in close and whisper:
“You work customer service for eternity? Poor you.”
Then my fist meets marble and the bell rings,
and the Pearly Gates swing off their hinges.
Wings beat like shutters;
angels tilt their heads like bored referees.
I dodge the choir—
their harmonies can be lethal—and I keep walking.
A goddess in linen offers incense;
I snatch the censer, skein it into a rope, and swing.
Her perfume tastes like paperwork;
I cough it up into the wind and keep going.
Hallways mapped by myth—
Olympus, Valhalla, the mailroom of miracles—
I stride them all barefoot, dragging a trail of small rebellions.
I pass Zeus in a robe, bored with thunder.
I clap once and steal his lightning.
“Borrowed,” I tell him. He blinks.
Lightning in my palm feels heavy with apology.
I throw it like a rope—no, like an apology turned projectile—
toward the place where pain hides.
Ministers of fate try to lecture me on consequence.
I read their contracts aloud
and rip the margins out like ticker tape.
“Fine print,” I say.
“Fine for you. Not tonight.”
One deity mutters something about hubris;
I hand them a mirror. They don’t like their reflection.
The gods swell; the heavens tense,
like neighborhoods preparing for a parade that never comes.
I trade left hooks for liturgy—
each punch rearranges a verse,
each uppercut edits a line.
Commandments rattle.
Mythic laws become limericks under my knuckles.
I bleed ink and the stars drink it and become quieter.
They call reinforcements—
avatars, avatars with perfect hair and terrible customer service.
I meet each one the same: a joke, a jab, a promise.
“Your omnipotence has been outsourced,” I tell them.
A Valkyrie grins; I say, “Not tonight,”
and she drops her spear like it’s tired of being serious.
At the gate where they schedule tests,
I find the migraine: a small, grey child with the world’s noise in its fists.
It sits on a throne of buzzing radios,
feeds on fluorescent hum.
I kneel.
Not a prayer this time—a plan.
I cup the child’s head like a secret,
whisper apologies I don’t deserve to say aloud.
Then I punch a hole in the noise.
It’s less dramatic than you think—
a clean, surgical silence that smells like relief.
The gods holler. “You cannot—” they begin.
I finish for them: “Watch me.”
I gather their stubbornness,
twist it, braid it into lullaby.
Rewrite scripture? I do—one line at a time.
Where they wrote tests, I write rest.
Where they insisted on trial, I ink in mercy.
Where they wrote cosmic riddles, I carve simple sleep.
A thunder god tries diplomacy—
offers a crown if I’ll walk back.
I toss it into the void;
it clatters into oblivion like a coin with no value.
“You keep the crown,” I tell him. “I’ll keep the quiet.”
He sulks and the weather lightens.
Blood and starlight, sweat and scripture:
the bargain smells like incense and victory.
I do not conquer with conquest’s cruelty;
I conquer with the small, stubborn insistence of care.
I return the migraine to its box—
soft, bound with my exhale—
and hand it back to the universe with a receipt:
PAID IN FULL — one love, nonrefundable.
When I climb down,
the sky blinks as if it had only been napping.
You sit in your quiet room with a blanket and a mug,
blinking like an animal reintroduced to light.
You laugh at me later—a small, breathy thing—
because you always laugh when I swear and fight.
I kiss the place behind your ear
like I’m sealing the universe back in its proper frame.
Gods grumble;
some edit their resumes.
Angels gossip like old women
about the loud mortal who would not hush.
I don’t care.
I come down with sore knuckles
and a new psalm in my back pocket.
It reads: She shall sleep.
He shall never tire of saving her.
We will not test what we cannot bear.
And if any deity asks,
I say the same thing I said when I walked up:
“listen here, you divine little prick—
you might be God,
but you got little-dick energy.
Fight me if you want.
Fight us if you have to.
But know this: I love her.
I will make the cosmos learn how to be gentle.”
You close your eyes and breathe.
The migraine loosens its grip like a tired animal.
You murmur a name
and sleep folds you into it like a clean sheet.
I stay awake for a while,
fingers laced with that holy,
ridiculous, furious calm—
the kind that only comes
after you’ve brawled
with the architecture of the world
for someone you love.
If you are interested in checking out more of my poetry, you can find it here—[The Library of Ashes]
Poetry by Rowan Evans 