adolescent angst
by Marla
Lucas Blue told me a secret: He hated it, this place that should always feel like home but no longer did. He hated its stifling small-town chatter, the dismal lack of art and adventure and critical thinking, the straitlaced boys who didn't watch porn or smoke pot, the good girls who thought they would go to heaven if they got shiny straight As and didn't let any boy touch their breasts. He hated the crying babies in church, the violent heat that clawed at your skin, leaving it red and raw. He hated the leering priests, foaming at the mouth with their platitudes and self-righteousness, Padre Damaso anachronisms in a time where the pope had a Twitter account. He hated, and this was one hatred that filled him with remorse, the hunched old ladies with their shawls and prayer books, clutching their worn rosary beads as if meaning to squeeze some life out of them, smelling like aged paper and candle wax and imminent death. Fuck this, he thought at some point every day, resentment shooting out of his limbs in sharp bursts, a dark cloud of defiance trailing him everywhere he went.
