well-kept

one

 a sister once told me, a lie is a loose string in otherwise perfect sweater. it may not be immediate but one day, someone will pull that string. and the sweater you think is keeping you safe, will unravel right off you. a pile of string on the floor at your feet.

she whipped a wooden ruler across my hands for saying i would just stop wearing sweaters. her wrinkled, shrivelled hands shaking. the ruler tapping against my knuckles in rhythm with her tremors. one, two, three - whap - one, two, three.

there was no string. my sweater was in order and if ever not, i burned every string to keep it from fraying. not from anything she ever taught me, nope, the only thing i took from the cross was the pleasure of sore knuckles. and to savour the taste of rosary beads - stuffed into my mouth to spit onto her desk when she demanded i have them on me at all times.

she kissed that cross like a baby's forehead, folded the beads in her palm before forcing my fists to unfurl. what she carried with such weight, weighed nothing at all. she rolled my fingers closed again. a gift. and the only kindness she could spare, the rest given to god. no sparkle in her eyes except the flame from the candle next to me, jumping with her whispers.

people spend their lives waiting for angels, god and their miracles. do you know what demons wait for? - her wide eyes grasped nothing, what she might call the last reach for the cliff before you fall, even knowing you'll miss. hope is a survival instinct - demons wait for people. they wait for you. will you leave here with your jokes or be prepared for those demons?

i took my jokes. out the front gate in the middle of the night. after trying, gripping god to my chest the way she always was. expecting to feel whatever it was she loved so much about an ethereal being in the sky. no holes filled but the now blessed toilet, as her beads clogged the fussy toilet in the east wing. i slipped between the bars, my head only catching for a moment and once freed, turned to face the demons she promised me.

a scruffy kid, in his socks, with a never ending stream of smoke rising from his hair. the palms of his hands burned black, the skin twisted in scars - just like jesus, he'd said, don't you love jesus?

no, i'd shaken my head - only five at the time - i don't know a jesus. he had grinned in a way that assured me i knew the devil before i knew god. well-- do you want to meet him?

there with my head caught under the cold water in the tub, i met jesus. a never ending darkness that gave off no feeling, not frightening nor freezing like moments before. like falling asleep after a long, tiring day. comfortable, safe and no thoughts to stir any emotion. only one last sigh of relief.

then lights and people shouting.

it turns out jesus isn't as good as that darkness i found in the bottom of that tub. i couldn't squeeze that feeling out of any cross handed to me. i couldn't coax it out of hiding with any muttered prayer. i couldn't read the map to its location in any bible. nope - but locked inside his hands. withering and blackened like burning paper in the firebox, my knees pressed to the hearth. begging for more.

shame was another sweater one would wear according to that sister. one only god could free me from. that miracle i was meant to wait for? god taking off my clothes, murmuring in my ear with a hot, smothering breath. good boy. not at all like the heat coming off the fire that housed demons.

it'd hurt her. but only like her breath getting caught before exhaling. then relief. she can still breathe. she tried her best to save every soul that knelt before her, that averted their eyes and pressed their lips together so as to not let their opinions escape. but she couldn't save the soul i handed over to the demon in front of me.

a kid. his adult teeth still and forever now locked inside his skull. one baby tooth missing and yet to be replaced, now frozen, visible like a fish trapped in the surface of the ice. a still life painting. he doesn't extend his hand because he knows i'll follow. and if i didn't, he would hang off my shoulders to whisper in my ears. his breath like northern winds - the beginning of winter.

let's go meet jesus.