The Better Christian

The first time,

My dog tore through your yard

like he was answering a call I didn’t hear—

like he thought joy might stick to you

if it ran fast enough.

You looked up from the hood of your truck,

eyes like wet gravel,

staring like you’d already seen

the world cave in

and this was just background noise.

The second time,

your house was weeping,

the siding wore yolks like a freshly slapped face.

Boys with teeth made for taunting,

and the kind of thrill that outlives guilt.

We chased them down.

I saw my husband’s fist strike

like he’d been waiting for a reason.

You stepped out slow,

voice low like a shotgun under the bed.

“If they come back, I’ll kill them.”

But the words didn’t spark—

they sagged,

like insulation soaked through in the walls,

like someone rehearsing

a different kind of ending.

And then I wondered—

was this just a crack in the drywall,

or had the house already started

to sink?

It took its place beneath my collarbone—

not fear,

but the quiet you hear

when someone decides not to cry.

But I smoothed it down

like a dress hem at a funeral,

too afraid to seem strange

to risk being right.

Maybe I thought

“love thy neighbour”

meant shovelling snow

when the forecast’s cruel—

not tasting iron

in someone’s words.

Not calling it weather.

They say the rooms were ruined

with what poured out of you,

when you opened your wrists.

That it soaked deep into the wood.

That the floorboards still flinch where it happened.

That your daughter’s scream 

still clings to the rafters.

The porch bows now

like a spine without strength.

Windows blink with dust.

The whole street holds its breath

like it buried something too.

Sometimes my dog still noses

where your boots once stood like sentries,

tail twitching,

like he still believes

he can fetch back what I ignored.

I wonder

if he was the better Christian.