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23 Crystal Meth Under Her Choir Robe No surprise. Bills to pay, pain to obliterate, a favor to a friend desperate for more time before facing facts, or a reason less beholden to one-day-at-a-time or I-don’t-know-why or There-is-no-whyI -just-like-getting-high or Then-Jesus-spoke-to-me blather. Nothing’s enough, not even the moments when her voice—any voice, my voice— vanishes into the Voice the hymn wrenches from the throats of the spiritual paupers up there swaying in black satin. The God of the Garden is the God of Chemistry, too, a single sniff in a lifetime proof enough—nothing can slough errands or heartbreak so fast into the metaphysical ditch where all of it belongs. Weren’t we made for better than the Fall, if Fall this is? We all see what the Flood keeps doing. A little while dry, please, a little while with no chattering chimp between the ears & the Wizard once more in Oz. This is my mind, not hers. She’s a story I heard. I’m a story I can’t stop hearing. A plastic tarp in a monsoon may be her future. A plush ride home to havoc. A vision that delivers her from want, deserving or not. ...

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