the end of the block

I’m going to stop when I reach the end of the block. I’m going to turn on Avenida de las Pulgas and walk down the hill, I’m going to pray to no one. The trees are going to shade me, the sky is going to shame me, the people in the cars are going to blame me. The two children, the little dark haired girl with hazel eyes and the little dark haired girl with brown eyes, they’re going to hate me. My feet are going to fail me, I’m going to cry, I’m going to want to die. In the heavens they will curse me and in hell they will laugh at me, when they see, when they rip my pitiful sins from my chest, from my head and hands, from between my thighs. At the bottom of the hill, in the valley, in the world I used to know, they will find me frowning, loading gobs of fear into my belly, one by two by three. In my mind they will see the angelic witch’s singing and hear her belled hat jingling, bent over on the rug in front of the fireplace at Christmas, in the cabin by the winter moon. I will hum into the pillow. The sky will darken soon. I will not go back to where we dreamed. The air will be flat and stink of sweat. Crows will laugh when they find me sleeping on the asphalt. When I wish for death they will shake their conkled heads and fly.