On the first day I learned how to spell my name,
‘h’ included,
Daddy knocked on my bedroom door and let himself in—
I was six
when he planted the evil seed inside of me.
It’s been growing ever since.

Mommy told me to go to sleep with the Bible
under my pillow,
dabbing at her swollen face, pink paisley hanky in hand.
Uncomfortable
(the Bible-pillow, that is; after a while I couldn’t care less
about Mommy’s bleeding nose).

She said Jesus listened to everyone’s sorrows,
children’s first,
that there was no need to tell anyone— He could read thoughts.
Impressive,
I thought, for a guy who’d been through a helluva lot himself,
being crucified and all that.

Daddy told Mommy not to make up ******* fairytales,
that there’s no way
Jesus remained on the cross for as long as he did,
Pah! he said,
they didn’t have superglue in those days, you dumb *****!
Mommy said Yes-Yes, and shut her trap.

Mommy traded in her sanity for the bottle
Daddy fed her.
I stole Daddy’s shotgun and walked over to the Owens’,
where I threatened
to shoot little Jason, then aged five, if he didn’t lick me
up and down in front of his mother.

I’ve come a long way, and rumor has it there’s a price
on my little head,
that they had found Daddy’s ***** bones in the well
twelve years to the day—
but I’ve come to realize that this heart was made to ****;
I’ll polish my shotgun and wait.