An Atheist's Adversary

Before I could tie my shoes you taught me to never care about anyone

more than they care about me

And if it happened  to never let them know.

That way nobody would get hurt.

It was too late when I realized you were included.

I’ve always wondered if you knew that.

My earliest memories are us

Driving to the pawn shop

Where you’d bargain the tools that could not patch your relationship

for enough money to go grocery shopping at the dollar store.

We never had much but still smiled

Before my tenth birthday we moved four times

Bringing the same wooden coffee table with us.

Today in another transient living room

it acts the centerpiece

despite the broken leg and dents.

Embedded into the top are circular rings,

A reminder of the night I realized you were capable of mistakes.

A six-pack of beer had bubbled over into a shouting match

where you hammed a stainless steel pan into the table’s surface.

the Spaghetti-O’s inside to flew into orbit  suspending themselves momentarily, resembling pale stars

they crashed down

and our only family portrait with three faces was stained in a red warrior’s paint.

You were no longer the person I had admired.

You are an atheist, and ironically enough,

fell thirty feet off the roof of a church and lived.

They pushed painkillers but the pain did not stop with the prescription;

You are not a bad man, just a desperate one.

Even after watching you dig for change in the couch

To find enough money to get high

I still cared about you,

as embodiment of memories I will always cherish.

But the lesson you had tried to teach me about ¨not caring¨

was captured the moment the door slammed

and you did not come back. It became clear who cared more.