"I grew up in god’s back pocket.
To me, he was less Almighty and more
like the grown up friend who..."
“I grew up in god’s back pocket.
To me, he was less Almighty and more
like the grown up friend who didn’t know
how to talk to children. Our conversations were always—
stilted.
Barely ten, I watched the church chisel my father
into a pillar of brimstone. Or salt.
Watched him swallow scripture and
spit up salvation.
Standing on the sidelines, or the pews,
I saw sickness butcher him into buckle
and cracked leather. Each diagnosis
pulled the east Texas outta him somethin’ fierce.
He got worse: pill bottles and albuterol
piled up like unanswered prayers
on the kitchen counter, returned to sender,
until I ask my mother if maybe god just—
moved away.”
-
To me, he was less Almighty and more
like the grown up friend who didn’t know
how to talk to children. Our conversations were always—
stilted.
Barely ten, I watched the church chisel my father
into a pillar of brimstone. Or salt.
Watched him swallow scripture and
spit up salvation.
Standing on the sidelines, or the pews,
I saw sickness butcher him into buckle
and cracked leather. Each diagnosis
pulled the east Texas outta him somethin’ fierce.
He got worse: pill bottles and albuterol
piled up like unanswered prayers
on the kitchen counter, returned to sender,
until I ask my mother if maybe god just—
moved away.”
-
excerpt from PREACHER’S KID, by Ashe Vernon
(from the book Wrong Side of a Fistfight)
No comments have been added yet.
