During the summer right after graduating high school, I voluntarily went to a 2-day Christian youth camp up in what our church calls a "prayer mountain". I had been struggling with trying to be a good Christian boy and also being a horny teenage boy. I thought I would get to have a real come-to-Jesus moment up in that mountain where me and my fellow teens would sing songs of worship, confess our sins to small groups (i never did), lock ourselves up in a tiny room with just a bible for hours and no direction except to just pray, and fast for that entire 2 days. I lost myself in the woods behind the church for a while, in some vain poetic effort to look for god and answers, but only found myself back at the church with nothing.

Near the end of that 2-day camp, when the entire congregation of kids was singing its heart out, I ended up crying in hunger-induced delirium. The devout 15-year-old believer in me tried to believe he finally heard the Voice of Our Lord and Savior, speaking through him through the tears. But I knew better. I heard nothing but the wailing of a hundred children desperately wanting peace and acceptance. Those tears were shed for the fact that I was not getting any of that in the House of God.

We Know the Devil resurfaced that 15-year-old memory on this cold, 2 AM night where I am alone in my apartment and a siren wails out from this godforsaken city, making me wish I had a Venus, a Jupiter, or even a fucking Neptune with me all those years ago.