which doesn't necessarily mean true
I have to say I didn’t expect my
first sighting of you in nine years
to be a glance at your backside
on a massage table in
mama’s basement. I heard you
two were married again (you must
have been running low on cash)
and that you haven’t had a drop
to drink in months.
you work, what…one weekend a month
and two weeks a year and the
rest of the hours hang around
on mama’s dole. (if anyone needs
a massage, it’s clearly you)
I faked a migraine to avoid you
(saying I had to go straight to bed)
the bathroom was full of your ointments
and antifungal lotions and shaving
cream. I considered a
quick swipe at the toilet with your toothbrush.
but I am the adult, these days.
she is so excited about the possibility
of you and I eating breakfast
in the same room, sharing shitty coffee,
just like old times
that she flits around the kitchen like
a bird above turbulent water
(with no place to land)
you are sober nowadays, apparently.
and I find myself a casual observer of
what has taken whiskey’s place.
these days you two fill pill planners
for each other, but instead of the antipsychotics
you both could use, the little squares contain
vitamins and dessicated pig thyroid. I have
explained to her about modern medicine, but she listens to you, instead.
you, arguing with her over the doneness of
the eggs, the proper way to reheat bacon,
the optimal browning of toast, the front crease
on your military slacks for the first day
you have worked in weeks.
so…you’re sober these days.
but unfortunately, expectedly, clearly
still an asshole.
you call what was done to me at age eight
'baptism by total immersion.'
I call it drowning.
the church I grew up in didn’t actually want me to grow up at all.
it tried to kill me at every “please turn to Jeremiah 17:9”
it taught me that dying is the only relief from this sinful, angry universe
where who I am is not okay.
it taught me to pretend, to dissociate,
to be anywhere other than where I was. anyone other than who I was.
it coached me in the art of escaping reality
by dreaming of unattainable heaven love (which, other than the cheesy potato casserole Mrs. Craig brought to the potluck, was the only thing on a Sunday that ever made me feel satisfied)
it taught me that I was dirty, in constant need of washing.
on baptism day, I wanted to throw up.
I only agreed to it because I hated being a sinner,
and I wanted to publicly demonstrate my faith,
in the hopes that the soaking would magically strip me of all of my shameful
parts.
instead, the old man held me under a second too long, and I got unholy hose water up my nose.
I had to walk around the rest of the service with raw sinuses, ashamed that my hair was dripping.
I was wracked with violent shivers.
but lots of adults patted me on the back, called me a child of God, and made me feel
for just a day like I could do anything.
since I survived, I was born again.
my church explained that living was just a temporary nuisance, a daily chance to sin.
every breath taken was a fight against my very nature.
constant denial is exhausting.
each scheduled washing eroded a brain wrinkle, smoothed me
down, chafed all the beauty
away, until almost nothing interesting was
left of me.
in order to feel something, to be alive,
I knew it was time to get some sinning in.
I knew it was time to let the dirt settle under my fingernails, and to let my hair go unwashed.
so one day I grew up. I began to live.
it got me into trouble, because the rest of my world was still into that whole
Christian business.
I was never taught how to live, and I messed it all up.
but I did see glimpses of heaven love, and I learned that it’s called dopamine.
baptism day was a near-death experience, but
that was all part of the plan.
I was surprised to be told the same day that suicide is a sin.
they have to tell you that, otherwise every single Christian would do it.
(they spend every Sunday worshipping death, primarily the death of Jesus
(who could have gotten out of it because he is all powerful, but he chose to die for me, so let’s just call that what it is: voluntary death = suicide))
my church told me that heaven awaits, and it will be the most perfect thing I can imagine.
but now that I’ve lived, I’ve been to heaven.
no dude was there to remind me I am not okay.
and despite learning to live, my default setting is still suicide,
which is a sin.
so. here we are back to square one. what a bizarre, impossible cycle.
it upsets you that I don’t believe in your God.
well, it upsets me that you’ve spent your life trying to drown me.
I am accepting a gift of homegrown tomatoes
from 92-year-old Frank, and touching
the place where WWII shrapnel remains
in his left palm, while you stand behind him
in line rolling your eyes, shouting over his
shoulder “where is the canned corn?” and
when I ignore you stomping off to tell the
store manager I am having “personal
conversations not related to work”
yesterday you picked up thirty Vicodin,
yet here you are (high) again today with a new
script from a new doctor for thirty Percocet.
upon my objection, you explain impatiently
how you accidentally flushed the Vicodin,
or that they were stolen from your house, or
that they made you nauseous, or that you fell
and have increased pain, and how dare I withhold
these narcotics your doctor knows you need
you lean on my counter talking loudly on your
400 dollar iPhone, with Marlboro Reds poking
out of your Coach purse, and bags of salty Lays
in your cart, and a pregnancy bump your two-
year-old is using for a pillow – and not ceasing
your conversation you hand me your Medicaid
card and tell me without a hint of irony that
you don’t have one dollar to pay the copay on
your blood pressure meds. well. of course you
don’t. and why would you.
I’m sure you love your teenage son, but when I ask
you for his date of birth you stare at me blankly and
ask “how long’s this gonna take?” and when I respond
with “twenty minutes” you act put out and say “jesus!
don’t you just put pills from the large bottle into the
small bottle?” and I think “yeah, I’m just a drug monkey
with a doctorate” but I say “ma’am, can I have your
son’s date of birth?” and under my breath I mutter
“do you want fries with that”
and you, my employer, who stood by (did
nothing) when my staff pharmacist overdosed
on Xanax and passed out in front of the cough
and cold aisle - you should know that I stand for
thirteen straight hours with an empty stomach
and a full bladder to argue with Blue Cross and
give another flu shot and meet your quotas and
take shit from fat women on scooters while 92-
year-old Frank just needs someone to take his blood
pressure and stroke his shrapnel and patiently listen
you (employer, coworkers, customers) haven’t
asked me why I quit (and won’t) and since you won’t
let me be a pharmacist you also won’t understand
that whatever you pay me, it’s not worth it.
so anyway,
I quit.