His name followed her around everywhere, slipping out of well-meaning mouths, tumbling forth from familiar faces, embarrassing friends who knew better but made more of a habit of forgetting than
remembering she wanted nothing to do with Him, but here He was as her aunt passed the stuffing at Thanksgiving, each family holiday reminding her He was the firstborn, her family’s favorite, Jesus He was the older sibling who would never let her forget Him, forget them:
her childhood crush her high-school teacher her church’s priest who believed her to be a phase, not a name, more choice than fact jury be damned, the court ordained a legal change but they could not make Him be her, for she was still He
perpetually for her enemies provisionally at the DMV parenthetically for the politicians who apologetically pleaded to the undecided voters in our divided county who believed in Him, could agree on Him, could more easily conceive of He and Him and His Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, my God He was a given, was given, was God’s-given how could He be given so much and want to become her, a demand, an ask, an explanation an aberration, a lesson for her mother, a challenge for her father, a pardon? for her employer, an oh! for her grandmother
and for her grandfather, right next to her? he wanted her gone wanted to slash the s right out of she grab her, shake her until she forgot her ending coughed up the middle, the aunt’s stuffing dropped the r and left He, Him who was there at the beginning
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