ROOSTER

He sat in the back of the room away from the others. With his back against the wall he pulled his thighs up close to his chest and rested his forearms on his knees. He hung his head low. Breathing deep breaths he could feel the heat on his face from his shame and guilt and anger and fear.

“I am going to die.” He thought.

“I am going to die all alone with no one near me, just like him.”

He looked up from the corner of the room to see Andrew and James talking about something but he didn’t know what. It was as if he was deaf. Everything was internal. Everything was inside his own mind as if his ears had been shut off and he was left to his own thoughts for comfort.

“I want to die.” He said.

Murmuring so low that no one else could hear him. He hadn’t opened his mouth for a whole day, maybe two. He just sat waiting in the room with the others. But waiting for what?

“With the way that I have acted, I shouldn’t expect much.” His internal monologue was getting louder.

He took off his sandals and rubbed the ache out of his toes. He set the sandals beside him and then rubbed his face and his eyes and stretched his arms and cocked his neck back and closed his eyes.

“The narrow path.” He thought to himself.

“What does that even mean?”

He started softly weeping with his eyes towards the ground and even though the others could hear him no one made any notice of it. They all just went on with what they were doing.

Then he heard from across the room, “Peace be with you.”

Plague.

We, the rot gut sinners.

We are the locusts of consumption, You and I.

We devour and gorge on things that are not ours.

We question why nothing good is left.

We lie awake in the long winded hours of the night.

We stare at the hands God has given us and we are terrified.

Over and over again we recount and re-catagorize our inequity

like amnesia ridden librarians.

Innumerable lovers have we known.

We, the rot gut sinners.

Whorish desires that sparkle in the dim lights of want and need.

So easily we are lead to the slaughter by the promise of empty chests.

Upon poisonous figs of rot do we feast.

We, the rot gut sinners.

A beautiful shimmer in complexion but death from within.

For how long can this go on?

For how long can death sustain death?

I wish us not to be the generation of apathetics.

"Well they sure did have good intentions." They'll say.

We, the rot gut sinners.

We, those who are afraid to jump from any height.

All the pretty girls.

All the pretty girls leave the dance with all the hansom boys in their big red cars and drive to dark houses with darker upper rooms where clothes are dropped onto hardwood floors. But on the dock at the edge of the lake a lonely girl jumps heels first into the forgetful waters. Deep enough to dig her heels into the silty floor of the dark lake.

Bettery.

Books don't need batteries.

Neither do Pencils.

Paper Doesn't need batteries.

Nor dos the ink that I write with.

My eyes don't need batteries.

Neither do my feet.

My fingers don't need batteries.

And my heart runs just fine all on my own.

My faith doesn't run on batteries.

My feet are capable on their own.

My eyes don't use batteries.

My mouth works on it's own even when I don't want it to.

I guess in some ways, we're all batteries.

Bringing energy to one another.

But for now, natural is where i'll stay.

Keeping myself charged on something more pure.