The children are taught they are demons. A scourge that’s inciting the wreckage of paradise. The holy men claim that, through torture, some salvation awaits them. By no longer being the children that they are: through the pulling of fangs, clipping wings. Through the turn of their bones in marble. The holy men spend years concocting new punishments, exorcisms where the children admit to demonic blood, to their role in some devilish scheme. Because the children’s lives could never be something they wanted or wished for. Rather, the devil’s infection. Through the TV and library books. The holy men swear that the devil hides out in the city hall bathroom. The holy men rage that the parents are criminals, that the children must be taken away. And still there’s the problem of the demons who grew up. Survived. Who all wear their horns long and whip their ruby tails at any preacher who edges too close. The grown demons let young ones know that their thriving is possible. Let the children be guided by the legions before them. Let the children’s raucous dance break out over the strip mall of paradise. The children will grow so immense that the holy men tremble. The children will claim the whole kingdom. The children will grow up,
I promise.
