Pershing Drive

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Pershing Drive

”No regrets, Coyote

              We just come from such different sets of circumstance”

Joni Mitchell

It is 10:34am on a Sunday morning sometime in July,

and I, enveloped in the soft, stretched skin that protects my overgrown body

am sprawled out across my nana’s itchy green carpet

with hot sunlight painting my calves.

An ever so familiar sensation,

it had climbed in through the frost-paneled front door,

and we had welcomed it.

Wafts of stale roses and potpourri invade my nostrils 

while something unintelligible spins on the turntable

and something even more unintelligible babbles on the television.

I am laughing with my cousin about something we’re not meant to be doing,

and I am content in my young age,

maybe for just a moment.

We were our own little church of manners and rules on Pershing Drive.

We hadn’t attended a true service since Easter,

Which isn’t unusual for us,

and no one really minded.

Because we had found God in the corners of my nana’s basement 

while playing hide and seek,

we found Him in the kitchen when we snuck out of our rooms

to pour a glass of cranberry juice,

failing in our efforts of silence.

we found Him with our feet perched on the sofa in contrary to my nana’s firm requests to

“sit like a gentleman” 

though not exactly her words.

We went against our little deity of manners and rules 

and found Him in a tight slap on the wrist

or in a harsh point, pursed lips and wide eyes.

Those were the moments when we became God-fearing people,

though God-fearing people we did not remain

Because God only followed us out of the house when we stepped on the neighbor’s lawn

or walked too far down the street without permission

or trampled flowers that were meticulously planted just weeks before,

God did not follow us to school

or to our friend’s house

where we’d shove a cigarette in between our lips to feel cool

or where we’d stick a needle through our skin 

with the subconscious hope that maybe the messy ink would fade.

God could not find us hiding under our covers,

exploring what it means to be an adolescent.

So that is where we hid,

that is where I hid.

At school,

at a friend’s house,

under my covers,

The places where God, I know, did not reside.

Perhaps out of shame,

perhaps out of growth,

not too often anymore do I visit my little church on Pershing drive.

No longer am I spread out across the floor laughing with my cousin,

reigned over by our innocence,

but rather I am sitting with that same cousin in his bedroom, 

jaded by conflict but close nonetheless,

discussing the loss of virginity,

and who’ll die first.