PURPOSE THEN

Sorry folks, it's pure prose this time around:

PURPOSE THEN

The doctor delivers the bystander at Locust County Hospital. Taken home to an apartment set in the bassinet and footsied from the porch smoking cigarettes once more. Bottle-fed and babysat, the bystander sent to school early age four sucks thumb while the others play. Bible school like Catholic school only free always talking about innocent babies over snacks. God songs all day.

Bible school wants the bystander to go back because it is silent there, to find that a father beautifully and wonderfully makes souls. They want to meet their maker there. They hold the protestor’s hand at the pregnant uterus letting go of life behind the cowbell bulletproof door. Can’t help but to watch them kill the doctor.

The bystander goes to church every Sunday, most Wednesdays, sometimes Fridays or Saturdays. Likes to get down on knees and pray. Likes the holy water in the glass bowl entrance to splash it and stick tongue in air for a taste. Likes the making the cross. Knowing the prayers. Sometimes the bystander grows rare tenderloin tears sometimes torn some love’s such sin.

The bystander social butterfly makes church school friends fast. Grows past the naps. Stops sucking thumb but in bed on Saturdays, takes to between legs. Teeth slightly buck still singing guitar songs about unconditional fathers. Bystander’s father shy to talk about the whacking off. Bystander forgets he’s human. Some order from the sky. Some list of commands. Purpose then.

Bystander sent to Bible school early so everyone could go on working and father would drop him off and mother pick him up at the bus stop. Glossy posters of fairy man in robes kneeling on rocks with hands held open. Crosses over every doorway. White tea candles in front of a baby on the lap of a Virgin Mary. Everything under heaven, heaven, heaven.

The bystander social butterfly makes church friends fast. Tells stories about thrones and towers to the sky at his home a bus ride away. Gives orange peanut butter cracker sandwiches away at lunch. The bystander lets others pick toys first. Doesn’t read books. Doesn’t play with blocks. Dances his cracker fingers across white walls. Watches others. The bystander social butterfly first in line at snack time. First in line to bust down doors to recess. To turn around to watch others.

Bible school with always the best playground equipment and blacktop painted with hopscotch, foursquare, map, maze, sports courts. An ark. Wooden boat with a hollow woodchip-floor inside. The bystander would try to get there first alone to piss inside on the chips. Once the boat to float the terrible away with water until the lord giveth land again.

Bible school believes the bystander is past that. Jesus came to earth to save the bystander and the Bible school and those with open hearts to holy, wholly anti-abortion. Jesus nailed to a cross so the bystander can cross into heaven after death. Life not enough. Not sure off in their dollar sign worlds parents are saved. Bible school not always making sense, hard to carry all the way home on the bus.

Home upstairs, bystander goes to room to watch Super Mario Brothers rise from the dead.