Step-motherhood has few rules—keep the kids alive
is one and you nearly broke it that time
you picked me and my brother and my best friend
up from youth group drunk and laughing
and you told me to drive
I was fifteen but I did it because you weren’t hitting
the brakes when you should have and
it scared me.
I loved you when I was seven and you always kept your candy
bowl full of Whoppers and you’d convince Dad to take us out
for lunch and you’d let me and my brother go on adventures
without parents whenever you were around
we had fun.
You loved my writing and I let you read it more than I let
my mother which made her cry once but you thought
I was the best and you didn’t know enough to correct
my grammar or call my writing “religious” like my mother
did because you knew how much I hated that word—
religious.
I used to sit on your bed and ask you
what the Bible said about dinosaurs or what it said about pride
the good kind like for America
you taught me Christianity was a relationship
when you used the name Jesus so affectionately
(which I later grew to hate because it sounded cheaper
that way but at the time I loved it because it sounded like
he was your best friend and I wanted a Jesus best friend too—
not a religion).
And one of those days you called my sister an atheist
because she was unsure of what she believed and
you told her how our mother is going to hell because she’s
a Jew and God no longer loves Jews the way he used to
so we need to pray for her
and me—I need to pray for my sister
because if she keeps this up she’s going to hell along
with the rest of my friends who don’t go to church anymore
I asked you what grace is and you said
you didn’t know.
Sometimes my roommate smells like you or wears her lipstick
like you do and it gives me a sick feeling in my stomach
because I don’t want to be around you I don’t want to
answer your calls or listen to your voicemails because it
reminds me how I stopped caring about you and your
problems.
I know I should be sad that you’re leaving us but
I’m not really that sad more like relieved
because my dad can drink his beer again
and my sister can be an agnostic again
and I can call Jesus affectionate names without feeling like
I’m cheapening him.