All the Sinners Bleed

by S.A. Cosby

“Think of the worst thing you’ve ever seen. Now imagine seeing it dozens of times. See it and hear the screams that come with it and the cries for mercy or for God or for mama and knowing that there will be no mercy, no rescue, no divine hand of God coming down to smite the devils. Think of seeing that and knowing that it will stain you forever like the fucking mark of Cain.”

Titus could remember one social studies teacher who had said without a hint of compunction that Black people were cursed to be slaves by the word of God. When he’d gotten home from school that day and told his mother, he watched as a tornado brewed behind her eyes. “We going up there to talk to that wench tomorrow. Listen to me, Titus, and don’t ever forget this. The Word is perfect, but the way men interpret it is corrupt. And your teacher is full of shit.”

Later, after his mother was in the ground, he realized the Word was just as corrupt as the men who read it. Old Testament, New Testament, it was just words with a little w, written by zealots as PR for their new cult founded in the memory of a dead carpenter.