Together We Rot

After all these years, I know who I am.
I am Elwood, born to the soil and frost, destined to give my heart to these trees. I am home.

The creature is biblical in size but unholy in nature.

Mom said dark thoughts were ships passing in the night. You can choose to watch them go. You don’t need to sail away with each one.

“Everyone’s bound to make a million mistakes growing up, but there’s always going to be that one nagging one. Something you regret deeply but can never truly fix or change. You two were only thinking of yourselves. Nothing wrong in that, but nothing right either.”

All my life, my father’s been God. The ultimate example of wisdom and holiness, a stark reminder that God’s love is in limited supply, that only a few of us will ever bask in it, and the rotten rest will endure the full weight of His wrath.
I don’t see God in him now.
In fact, I don’t see God anywhere.

I stiffen to my very bones. I’m a caterpillar helpless to my father’s parasitic prayer. His words lay their eggs under my skin and devour me from the inside out. He read my death sentence aloud and I smiled.
I smiled.

Stress has made a home in my brain and in my oil glands.

The cold twists around my bones.
My ribs have been replaced with shards of ice and my breath pools out like frozen pine.

Her voice is distant, foggy, even. “Growing up means learning to roll with the punches.”
I refuse to accept that. “Then I’ll never grow up because I don’t plan on taking this lying down. If they’re punching me, then I’m punching back hard.”

Hell isn’t some burning, fiery pit beneath the earth. Hell is stepping out into the cold and having Mother Nature sucker punch the air out of your lungs. Hell is a scraping wind so intense that you check for blood on your cheek.