from the comments

And so we go, sometimes forward, sometimes to the places we started, time, unforgiving train, never stopping to wait for any. Each with a thought of what we would if we could, or maybe what we wouldn’t. Familiarity we share, never waiting permission, clumsily pulls us together and tears us apart. Regrets we know better than to have, an itch, there to remind us when our minds finally find rest.

We were only children. How could we have known? Who should we tell that we had to watch our parents cry? It was for God! Wasn’t it? We were going to be righteous. We were a step above, set apart. We were on fire, righteous indignation. We did what we had to, anything, to survive. Some fought, some ran, and some learned to pretend.

The good news, I stopped caring. The bad news, about anything. That’s why I’m not mad at you, I lost that ability when I was 12. I’m indifferent, I think. Except for one thing. I would drag myself, crawling, across all the hot asphalt in the world, to save your children from you.

I’d introduce them to the God you lost somewhere in all your religion.