My faith was stowed on the back of a chair when I traced the spine of a bible given in the pavements of long necks and nodding brows.
Years had let the pages dried out and turned the papers dark yellow, some developed black eyes, holes from a spindle –stabbed by the cynical mind.
Before I heard some preachers clad in checkered shirts and jeans, women in long death skirts with embroidered veils and holiness proclaiming the Almighty and the source and end of life.
I folded my earlobes to cover my holes cutting the words they said I needed to hear. Although some light pierced through my scheming mind, like an uninteresting story I turned away with all my might.
Different stories, parables, proverbs and hymns collected in one– saying a lot about me and every thing around us. But my self was difficult to compose as to my stand on questions that people flagged.
My beliefs stirred like the lapping waves of the sea to the cliffs. And I shut my eyes, my brain then my grayish heart.
How could I embrace this bible when I felt its endless death here and beyond?
From the eyes of people who taught me how to open it, who read me lessons from the unknown verses. As they turned haunted and evil behind the words of salvation their mouths had ever spoken. Likewise I became the witch and the monster who betrayed her blood kin.
The Bible on the altar and the wooden saints stood still in one corner, waiting for me to bend my knees under the dimmed light of disinterest and reluctance.
Then I looked at God out in the plains and blue skies I knew he was yet to snap his fingers to aid my stubbornness.
Perhaps.
I could begin to pray with clean hands and submissive will even after I saw the death of my soul every time.
A composite of me and the universe 