Excerpt from My Soul to Keep
Running away from the hand of God, I sprinted the short
distance home and held onto my wounds tightly to stop
them from bleeding. Finally, I fell onto my porch, the
blood oozed between my fingers and onto the planks of
wood. The tink, tink sound of blood pouring into metal
echoed in my ears and drowned out the chirping of the
spring birds. Reaching for the doorknob, my sunbaked
skin had become white as snow. The blood had
completely disappeared. Now, I’m haunted by illusions
and they’re not even illusions of grandeur. With all the
strength I had left, I willed myself up and pushed the
door in. “That fucking sucks!” and crossed the
threshold into my cave, back into the dark womb. I laid
my heated forehead against the cool of the adobe to
ease my delusional fever.