Why I Can’t Go To School Today
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It is an honor to hold your council today, Mother, on the very day that will wake tomorrow. In our years together I’ve understood that, as always, you’ll be taking no prisoners. Let my trial by fire commence.
I cannot go to Catholic school today, Mother, because the cyber-geometric, biodegradable nightmare that is reality, has betrayed me. At school I ask, “Where did your faces go? Faces I haven’t seen for hundreds of thousands of years or so? Do we still share the same feeling? Have you, too, felt our ideals standing still, pressing against a reality that refuses question?” On the sacral grounds of ritual ripening and education, it's anyone's guess if the youth can reconcile fact and historical fiction. But Mother, this morning I am here to strike a deal, regard my reasonable plea. I’ve simply lost my Bible. There is no reason for me to leave.
We are no strangers, in no strange land. We are home! We are at home, watching tomorrow take flight, feeling yesterday pull away slow. And every morning I am woken, shaken awake, by tomorrow. Tomorrow wakes me. And I don’t want to get up, because every morning, tomorrow’s sea level rises, and Heaven grows hotter and hotter. Here you will tell me to deepen my roots, so I may bear all their fruits. But roots need a heavy weight of faith to move like so, and I just don’t have it. You know me, I’ve never been known to miss a good show, I guess this time I’m really through with it. Please don’t make me go. And here, you’ll say no, no, this is spiritual retribution. And still, that’s not the root of it.
Really Mother, it's not the eternal serpent hissing in my ear, or the fig on the wall. It’s that I’m blessed by God, and hunted by devils. It’s not the institution itself, nor everything I’ve ever said or done there. If we’re being quite honest, it’s that no one will ever remember what I’ve said or done there, it’s their forgetfulness that’s got me on edge. It’s not that God chooses my Fate, or that Death is alive and real. It’s not that I’ve made no decisions, ever. Because if we’re being quite honest, Jesus wept, for neither could he accept his fate. And they say we’re not all from the same grain? I don’t believe, I never will.
You’ll say, oh dear, I can’t think of a child more horrible. Well, how can I put this… Mother, you don't have to fight me, God’s children, or the world. Just yourself, it’s only a thousand years. How would you have me please Him anyway? How am I to know what still tastes good after eternity? I imagine nothing pleases His immortal, unchangeable certainty. At school, I ask, “Is this the deepest we can go? Are you sure we’ve traveled true?” And they’ll say, it’s been proven, we can prove any truth. Not by divine order or unwritten law, nor with bringers or bearers. It’s really that memory we all used to share. The one that wakes us up at night, the one each must bear. Our poor, original sin.
Well, Mother, it’s tomorrow that wakes me, tomorrow with a sick grin. It’s the clear star of yesterday, hundreds and thousands of years ago. It’s everyone who waves goodbye, to the person who just arrived. It’s letting Death know that the only thing I’m betting on is good karma too - and Death laments, “Only one way out.” I’m not going to school today, Mother, because my soul is bleeding and my fever hasn’t broke. I have nothing more to bet, and when I pray, God whispers in my ear, “The dice are loaded.” And still, that’s not the root of it.