may 7 2023

I am walking down [redacted] Street and I see a woman sitting in front of the liquor store. She has her head in her hands and a cardboard sign in her lap that reads: “Hurt and Abused. Do You Believe in God? Please Help Me.”

By the time I get home, I’m already dissociated but her image sticks in my mind.

There’s too much suffering in the world, too much pain to go around. It is endless and cataclysmic and everywhere. I sit down at my desk and close my eyes and think about when I was a child, maybe 8 years old.

I am sitting in a room with my aunts and uncles and my mother. There is the sound of loud talking and the radio. The smell of sweet, fried dough. It is Sunday. I ask my mom to tell me the story of Jesus because I did not understand what all the fuss was about. She asks if I’m sure. I insist. And so she tells me everything. When she gets to the part where he is hung up on the cross, I start crying big, heavy tears. I could not comprehend why he was hated, why they would go so far as to kill him, why his so-called father would let it happen, why, when caught in the sea of human darkness, he chose forgiveness. I thought he was foolish. I thought, “people are crazy.” I thought, what the fuck. I wept for hours.

It was too much for my 8 year old immaculate heart to take in but I had insisted. I wanted to know and to understand.

I still do.