The sky was a pair of washed-out jeans hung up to dry
misting soapy drops as winding fists wrung each leg
over me and my mom
as she drove me home
from church. I’m not sure why—if
it was just me being twelve—
my lungs aired ice,
“Mom,
I don’t think I believe in god.”
The words
congealed between us
and her prune-mouth whispered to the windshield,
“Then I have failed you as a mother.”
Only the uh-ohs of the wipers
dragging on
was heard the rest of the ride,
and no matter how many times
they cleared our view,
the rain continued to blur the world in front of us.
Courtney Kaye is a writer and wanderer currently living near Chicago. Her work has appeared in GSU’s CAS newsmagazine ArtSci, the art and creative writing journal Reconstructed, and the literary magazine IAMB. Courtney serves as the head writer and editor for Honest Work LLC’s home maintenance and remodeling blog From a House to a Home and is working on her first novel—a semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age tale—in her spare time.
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