More on: hell

I used to keep my beliefs about hell tucked latent in the hidden place. After Joe died, they began to eat at their cupboard, like moths in a sweater drawer.

The shooter was a loner—they always are—
but to the bullied and confused, he just
might be the one who understands . . .

A shape less recognizable each week, A purpose more obscure. ________—Philip Larkin, “Church Going” In spite of fundamentalists, it keeps on being true, what Larkin said. I’m walking through with my Jewish daughter and her three boys, the stone and glass saying not a word to make any of us believe, but I’m seeing the…

Steep concrete stairs leading up to the empty stadium’s ledge— and was it a moment’s lapse, that one step out onto air? Or was there a clamor, a shrieking inside, a pack chasing her, creatures who prodded and leered, who for so long, like sleeping dogs, she gingerly stepped around, and perhaps had come to…

I tell you it’s a bitch existence some Sundays and it’s no good pretending you don’t have to pretend, don’t have to hitch up those gluefutured nags Hope and Help and whip the sorry chariot of yourself toward whatever hell your heaven is on days like these. I tell you it takes some hunger heaven…