Handfuls of Dust

The Devil

The devil may have went down to Georgia, but he lives in California.

According to Google Maps, his home is walking distance from my house.

He resides near the Mt. Diablo school district, which is ironic to say the least.

I know that he dwells there. I've seen him there.

The smell of warm whiskey on his lips has burned my nostrils. The bitter taste of his drunken slurs have scorched my tongue.

Foremost though, I've heard about what he does to one of God's angels when he thinks that no one in heaven is watching.

He ties her wrists to a bedpost so the palms of her hands are folded like a child who prays to be delivered from evil.

He bends her body over a ragged mattress because it is the only position that he can get her in to stoop down to his level.

His words manifest themselves as demons and find residency in her mind. His touch extends itself as a trident piercing her scaly skin.

But contrary to popular belief, he doesn't have a long pointy tail or a god-awful goat like goatee. And he sure as hell doesn't look like Al Pachino, Robert DiNero, Jack Nicholson, or Will Ferrell.

He stands about five and a half feet tall with a body that resembles an old burning church that could not escape the winds of hellfire, rushing from its own ventilator.

He has a hunchback, probably because he always cowers from his self-appointed pedestal to look down upon her.

He is unemployed and spends most of his day staring mindlessly into the eyes of a television screen. It's the only entity that will return his vacant stare.

He drinks until he is drowning in his numbness and his lips can no longer taste his daughter's tears.

He dubs himself as a father and a provider. But a shepherd would not lay a lamb down in green pastures by beating her to the ground with his rod and his staff.

He poses her in the image of his god and he jerks all over that picture until she only sees herself through his frame of reference.

He tells her that her body was bought at a price, but he only invests enough into her to view her as a cheap whore.

He says that her body is a temple while pillaging her of her innocence until it's degraded to a robber's den.

But I believe that if there is a heaven, it will outstretch its clenched fists and offer themselves as keys to the gates of hell.

And I believe that if there is a god, he will get his ass off of his throne and trample his feet upon the Devil until he returns to the dust that he smothers his daughter in.

Because have no doubt that if heaven heard her whimpering prayers, Jesus wept with her.