Bullied in the Bible Belt

Every Monday

you brought your Sunday
finest to the bus stop:
harsh words, hard fists
inflicted on the infidel
who kept Jesus
in her hope chest—
along with a copy
of Anne Frank
and a sugar-
sweet stopper
from a Drambuie bottle—
and who prayed
at night between
bed sheets to
whoever listened.

A good Christian boy,

you went to church,
then spent your Mama’s
tithing coins on gum
and candy, spent
your envy on those
not forced to make
the Sunday commute
to a cross-covered
space, spent your
fear on those
who believed
in a different fashion.

Prompt=judging poem. Being beat-up by the good Christians at my bus stop in the 6th grade because I did not go to church formed the foundation of my non-theistic philosophy. I find it ironic that I fell in love and married a man who is a Unitarian Universalist minister. Peace...

Luck

I find it funny that today is commomerated by all things green and the drinking of beer when, in fact, Saint Patrick drove snakes from the island of Ireland. It still is not clear whether the snakes were the literal animals, or the pagans that had occupied Ireland before Christianity.

At any rate, a day to remember my Irish roots, as well as drink Irish pear cider with friends. Peace...