anne raze you were the youngest of five. you and your siblings were uprooted eleven times before you had your first kiss. your father was a choir director with delusions of grandeur tucked into the desire for a normalcy he would never know. he lied. about everything. he did things to you there aren't words horrifying enough to explain. you were working at twelve to support your family, while he was busy waving his hands around and telling people how to sing and sleeping with men behind your mother's back. she thought success was a filthy road paved with sin. you found your way there anyway, to soap operas and soulful indie flicks. to summer blockbusters and made-for-tv films. your family splintered. one sister dead after cancer ate her brain. another whose heart failed her before she learned to speak. a brother who died in a car accident when he was eighteen. you said the lies that surrounded you and the denial you were raised in bore a child of truth and love. in the summer of your thirty-first year, you drove from los angeles to cantua creek and walked a little less than two miles until you found a door you thought was worth knocking on. the man who lived in the house you chose recognized your face but didn't know you. he let you in anyway. you drank some water, took off your shoes, and took a shower. after you towelled off, you asked for a pair of slippers and said, "we should watch a movie." he called the police. when they came to take you away, you told them you were god. you said you were bringing everyone back to heaven in a spaceship. a week ago, instead of parking your car somewhere far from home, you drove straight through a different stranger's house. it took an hour and fifty-nine firefighters to douse the flames and get you out. now they keep you alive with machines so they can cut you into pieces and give you back to the children you'll never know. the body of christ. amen. 220814 what's it to you? who go blather from