Photo by Vitaliy Shevchenko on Unsplash
At night, Jesus visits my bedroom, not a Middle Eastern Jesus speaking a foreign language, a white Jesus speaking perfect English. He apologizes for the suffering he’s caused me and begs my forgiveness, asks for my salvation, stretches his arms out like he’s hanging from the cross. Please save me, he begs. He apologizes for how I cried as a teenager after every time I masturbated in the shower, for my guilt when I read comic books, for how I never felt alone in my head—that even in silent, dark rooms he was still reading my thoughts. He asks me to baptize him, and I cleanse him the only way I know how. I soak his long, flowing hair with my semen, just like he used to wash old men’s feet.
Brett Pribble’s work has appeared in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, decomP, The Molotov Cocktail, Five on the Fifth, Maudlin House, Bending Genres, and other places. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ghost Parachute. Follow him on Instagram/X/Bluesky @brettpribble.
