Forgive Us Our Trespasses

I.

Bless me father I am a mass of sin, don’t ask me how long it’s been. I lied, cheated, and stole. Each blemish weighs on my soul.

When I was eleven I set a house on fire. One or two bodies lay on that funeral pyre. Do you feel me Lord? Do you feel me Father? I stood by the heat ’til it wasn’t a bother.

A darkness set in and put me on the wicked way. Mama and the preacher teacher began to pray. They hoped to end my predation and find me salvation. Too bad, too sad, I enjoyed my damnation.

But I wasn’t always so cruel I loved to run and play in school. Those days ended when from behind the sacristy the pastor showed me his itty bitty ministry.

When he finished and picked up his collar, left me with a silver half-dollar. Of course the world gave as much as it took, smacked me like a bitch from the good book.

The old song said he shot a man to watch him bleed. Me too, ‘cept I cut him while I smoked me some weed. Do you get it? Do you see? I scared away the man from Galilee.

I grew up and became the terror in the night and for many I was the last thing in their sight. For years there were no regrets, I smoked lives like cigarettes.

One day my world changed, my priorities were rearranged. Somehow I found love and a wife, had a little girl that changed my life.

God laughed with a sick sense of humor gave my baby an incurable brain tumor. I remember falling down, scraping my knees, looked up at His altar begging him please

Save my baby, don’t let her life end Do this and my wicked ways I will amend. It took a while to believe my promise even God can be a doubting Thomas.

Father, in this place I will not give perjury, never left her, not through the chemo or any surgery. I made a vow if my baby were to die she would lie in my arms as I say goodbye.

God is funny and wicked to be sure, tangled a promise so awesome and obscure. Be good and stay away from my people and your daughter will not lie beneath any steeple.

Within three years all the treatments ended. True to my word, the cravings and sins were suspended. Seventeen surgeries, chemo, and radiation ceased. Do you hear me? Do you understand priest?

I was good.

I kept my promise.

II.

Twenty years and no sign of the cancer. I thought church might have been the answer. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost went to communion and ate the definitive host.

My little girl went off to college to study and learn And each Christmas and summer I waited for her return. One day while lying in bed she felt something beneath her head.

It was a lump that grew out of her neck. I knew then my prayers bounced like a bad check. In three weeks it grew to the size of my fist. A month later her body was full of these cysts.

Pay attention. Here comes the tricky part. You know. Where I stab you in the heart. Oh Father, don’t fret, don’t move, I’m finally getting into my groove.

I know the ropes are tight. They were tied with all my might. Stop squirming. Stop crying. You’re being rude. I need to tell you about God and our blood feud.

Our Father who art in heaven I remember when she was seven. Daddy, daddy, am I going to die? No baby. No. But that was just a lie.

Hallowed be thy name The tumors hit her spine and made her lame. Now listen. She was tiny and lost so much weight. The next time she stands will be at Heaven’s Gate.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done. What happened next was not any fun. Day after day the radiation seared her black. When I held her strips of skin fell off her back.

Give us this day our daily bread. the tumors grew into her head. My baby could not breathe or swallow All His promises were dead and hollow.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those… It was a Monday when she was in the throes of her death. Suffered twelve days before her last breath.

And lead us not into temptation In his humor God led me into damnation. All I could think about at her burial was my little girl eating her favorite cereal.

But deliver us from evil.

Too late.

I’m here already.

III.

For twenty-two years I lived by our deal. Never used His Chosen Few as a meal. No matter what the Fates portend my promise has come to an end.

Father, at the funeral you said God’s ways are a mystery, For being such a dumbass your life is history. Last week, your Lord, your Savior, took my child and for that my ways will not be meek or mild.

It’s time to go. Mass starts in an hour. You need to know, I will do everything in my power that by communion I bring your parish to their maker. I do it because I begged God not to take her.

But he did.

And a deal’s a deal.

IV.

Within moments you will meet the Creator. Tell Him you’ve never seen anything greater than the hate swimming in my eyes and everyone will suffer for His lies.

I will burn his churches and hunt his priests eat their livers until they’re all deceased. Baptize the children of the Chosen Few with the blood dripping off the front pew.

The world will not get absolution. My will be the final solution. Strong and weak will be herded like cattle, tossed into the holocaust before the last battle.

I am the End of Days that will come. I am Death as it beats its brass drum. I am violence and pain uncontrolled. I am Revelation foretold.

Everyone will die priest.

Now open wide.

This is going to hurt.