Goodbye

I came here, to this quiet place, to say goodbye to you. You were always someone I looked up to. I felt that you would always be there for me, and for the people that I love. I believed in you.

Let me fill you in on what's been happening lately. In case you don't already know.

Every day there is more violence and more hatred, and last week I quit reading the newspaper because every morning I would read it at breakfast and every morning I would go to school nauseated and I didn't know why. Maybe you think that sounds really naive, but I honestly didn't make the connection. Every day, every damn day! Murders and rapes and baby killings and cancer and war and sewage and terrorists and race riots and disease and hate and hate and hate.

There is a man who lives down the street from me, his name is Georgie. Georgie is a man in shape and size but really he is just a sweet little boy and that is all he will ever be. Georgie liked to play hopscotch in front of his house. He always carried a box of chalk in his back pocket to draw the hopscotch squares on the sidewalk. Everybody in the neighborhood liked Georgie and no one here would ever hurt him. But a couple of months ago some guys, I think they were some kind of gang, came into the neighborhood and saw Georgie playing alone. I was home sick and I saw what happened from my bedroom window. The gang guys formed a circle around Georgie and they took his chalk and threw it into the streets. They were all laughing, except for Georgie, who started to cry, really blubber you know, wiping his nose with his hand. One of the guys started scuffing out the hopscotch game with his boots, and another one took a can of spray paint from his jacket and began to write stuff on the sidewalk. Georgie tried to get away and they pushed him down and kicked him and spit on him and then they held his head and sprayed paint in his face. I was already calling 911 and then I ran down to the street to try to help Georgie. The gang guys had run away, and I tried to wipe the paint off of Georgie, but I couldn't and then I was crying but Georgie was quiet and he went away in the ambulance and when he came home again he had a brown cane for walking and a white cane because he was blind and he can't play hopscotch anymore and that was his favorite thing.

I meant to tell you a bunch of other stuff, like how my cousin Rosa, who is only two, has cancer and all her hair fell out and she throws up all the time, and how Mama's new boyfriend hurt me the other night when I was in bed and Mama was at work, and how it seems like bad people have all the money and fun and they never get in trouble but people I know who are good get sick and die and it seems like you just don't care. I think maybe you are only for some people, but not for me or the people I know. I have thought about this for a long time, and I just can't believe in you anymore.

Goodbye, God.

Goodbye.