all with the help of faith

all with the help of faith: she grew up chained to the bible & the church---her arms & legs had been soldered upon being released from the womb & her father, a baptist minister, rambled on fire & brimstone the whole while that she was growing up beating christian doctrine into her skull, swatting her knuckles with a yardstick when she wasn’t kneeling on a broomstick & washing her mouth out with lava soap & windex so often that the inside layer of skin had been taken away, so if one was to look into her mouth with a soft light it would look bloody & chemical scarred. all with the help of faith. home-schooled, she was never able to make friends with the neighborhood kids---instead, she was made to stay inside all the time except for a few supervised hours a day, until when she turned 16, at which time, she was taken to the bible school where she became a teacher by the strict instruction of her father & he drove her to and from work, keeping her in line the whole time. all with the help of faith. when her mother had divorced her father on the grounds that he had hit her frequently for years, she was forced to take care of her little brother---so now, when she was not teaching more screaming little children about how “jesus” walked on the water & died for their “sins”---she brought home the message by swatting his knuckles with a yardstick, washing his mouth out with soap & forcing him to kneel on a broomstick. all with the help of faith. her father saw in his daughter a blossoming young woman, and with her mother’s eyes & lips, amongst other things, he couldn’t help himself for very long---he remembered what it had been like to be with her mother when they were both younger & devoted to the lord, before things began to wither & he felt he could have the same kind of magic with his daughter, because she would do what he told her & after all, “god” was on his side. all with the help of faith. and so after she had taken just about as much as she could, she ran away---she ran from him & all that he represented. she ran from him & all that he had done to her. she ran & ran, until her legs could not take her any further, without falling down in exhaustion. and she met a young man who said he would take care of her---and so he did, for a while. all with the help of faith. things were all peaches & roses, picnics & happy thoughts---every poetic word that sprung from his mouth, she believed, and she no longer thought about her father or anything about the life that she had escaped---after all, they were going to get married. they were going to have children. they were going to have the white picket fence. all with the help of faith. when the baby came, things changed quickly & he did not want to take care of her anymore---rather than leave the both of them, he dragged her through the torment of cheating, lying to her about where he’d been, etc. and she took it, because she did not want to return to her father. she still thought that the pro’s outweighed the con’s. she had to raise her child as “god” had wanted her to. all with the help of faith. soon, he began to do more than cheat. perturbed at the way in which she was not acting as if he was doing so, and in that, seemingly wanting to do more harm to her, in order to make her react---to make her run from him, so that he didn’t have to hold the responsibility. soon, even that grew boring for him, and he felt the need to cut himself from the whole situation. all with the help of faith. she awoke one morning with a shotgun barrel in her face & with terrified eyes she stared straight up at him. in his left hand that held the barrel, he also clenched a plane ticket for both herself and their child. “you are to leave my world and go back to your father,” he told her forcefully. “if i come home this evening and you aren’t gone, you will not see the light of the next morning,” he continued, and after that he unloaded the gun, walked downstairs, opened the door and left. all with the help of faith. as all the strength that she had once felt that she had, seemed to flush away directly after the barrel of the gun had been taken from her face, she acted only on instinct, to preserve the life of her child and herself. she packed extremely quickly and with her child she drove to the airport. with no intention on going back to her father, she had no idea where to turn. her whole life for the past couple of years had been dedicated to this man who only a few moments ago had shoved a gun in her face. having never trusted the authorities when she had been getting molested by her father, she felt no need to trust them now, and so going to them in search of assistance seemed out of the question. all with the help of faith. standing in front of the counter, ready to change her flight, she looked down at the brochure map of the world and closed her eyes. dropping her index finger, she opened them and told the ticket agent to reschedule her to land in said country where her finger had just rested, and with her child she boarded the plane soon thereafter. while on the plane she was able to finally breathe, but she had no idea as to what she would do when she arrived where she was going. her heart was racing, and she closed her eyes in prayer, asking her “god” to help her through this time of crisis. as with every other time she’d ever gone through this ritual, no one spoke to her, nothing happened, and she felt more empty and lonely for having believed that it would. when the in flight movie came on, she found herself drifting off into a haze, holding her baby, she imagined that being that she had no idea where she was going, and the fact that her whole life had been tossed up in the air, literally, she might be better off if the plane crashed. at least then, there would be no more struggle. there would be no more abuse from men, be it her father, her husband or whomever she might meet next. even more, her baby would never have to deal with that world. all with the help of faith. the plane crashed. both her & the child died.