Next to Godliness

Hey!

I thought I'd throw something out for people to read, feeling bad since I haven't done anything yet. I am trying to get as many publications as possible, and unfortunately a lot of publications don't allow second-time runs. But I can post already published stuff! This piece was published on Thickjam and I suggest other writers to submit there because it's a frequent and fast-responding publication.

Here's the site in case anyone would like to check it out.
http://thickjam.com/

It's titled 'Next To Godliness'. Enjoy!

xoxo Maggie

At the age of 19 I am on death row and want the injection so badly it hurts to not have the needle in my arm. For six months I waited for a verdict, handcuffs leaving rings around my wrists. But finally, here I am, just waiting for the trash truck to stop by, take me away, burn me up to nothing. I feel like a fifth wall, standing in meaningless silence, in vigilance for nothing.

My ex-boyfriend, he wants me dead. He’d planned on calling her Jasmine Rae- the baby girl that wasn’t his to have. I’d already be hung or shot or fried had he gotten the chance and choice. It’s funny how only true love can turn into true disgust and animosity.

But my parents are the ones who had to pull the plug or let me rot. Either way my life is done, whether I get a shot in the arm or a spot in the dark. I am a sentence strung and written only to be erased, a mistake if there ever was one. But the difference is that I won’t even leave the little rubber shavings to show I was at all.

Who knew people were easier to take back that the wrong words said or bygone regrets. Pain can’t be rescinded, but a soul sure can.

I never told anyone, but she was always Lilli to me. From the moment I found out to the last second she was mine, I called my baby Lilli Anne. But it’s a shame I was in bed the whole time I knew her. I was sick with nausea and her kicking my ribs, but I was paralyzed with thoughts of the life she’d never have; the life that I couldn’t give her. So I gave her back to someone I felt I could trust. On October 20^th I got the abortion.

I knew perfectly well that under new legislation abortion is legally classified as murder. So when my ex found out that his Jasmine was no more, he turned me in and pushed me away. Now I’m only garbage to him. Believe me these last months I’ve only wanted to be with Lilli anyway; away, far away, invisible.

And within the laws around homicide, only the biological mother and father can decide whether or not their child is given the death sentence. They brought you into this world, only they can take you out. Physical presence is determinable by flesh and blood, though whether you went to Heaven or Hell was sorted out elsewhere.

To my mom and dad, she was Amelia Jane. They were supposed to go to the park, dress her in tiny hats and shoes and play ‘This Little Piggie’. I became the monster in the closet the minute I took that away from them. After six months of indecision I was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. The world is about to be back in balance, so long as I am easily forgotten.

But here I am, a trash bag full of bones waiting in the dark to incinerate or be broken down.  Everyone’s promised a hundred times that there’s Hell flames set-aside especially for me; I think I believe them. Today, I tell myself, is the day the Garbage man in the Sky comes by to toss me out. Recycle my skin so that all the battered plastic pieces will melt back into something almost as beautiful as glass. I could give it another go, if he’d let me. If you’d have me.

It’s like Lilli and I never even were. Stars that died before their light ever reached a waiting sky. Hushed, hushed, never hollow as we shine.