Tif Cohen

My Grandmother once said that the reason children grow up so fast is because they’ve lost their Sundays. Such days were reserved for rest. Now an hour is left for God’s people to confess. Even then, where’s the king sofa to kick up your feet, the cat and dog at peace, sirens silent, the tyrants non-violent, and the liquor stores closed? Yet, I suppose. How would you fit a 168 hours into 6 days when there are bills to pay, 

medications to take,

rules to obey,

waste to reduce,

change to create, 

women to seduce, 

and feelings to sedate? 

Would it be possible to take a vote and reinstate the peace, I ask her. Her response is that my suggestion was made a few hundred years too late. But God still does get an hour.

 He 

or 

She 

or

 It

didn’t have the power for 24, but they at least got 1. 

We still have lives to choose, 

showers to take,

  jobs to find (and lose),

  hearts to break, 

booze, 

and children to motivate.

But how can we teach our children when they’re just that; fact-checked and carefree? Are they still able to imagine childhood fantasies that adults can no longer see? Or do their parents live 27 hour long days spending fewer hours where they should be?

And when days of unplugged interruptions ceased, the death of Sunday was born. She says homicide was conceived on a Sunday; A chaotic atomic pushing fiery ball  monstrosity that would have otherwise decreased in size exploded. And it had a twin: suicide. The fraternal chaotic molecule crashing fiery ball atrocity that would have otherwise decreased in size imploded when God got just an hour and we missed out on Sundays. 

The homicide in my family began when my mother walked into mine and my brother’s room one night. She told us to go to sleep and shut the hell up for the third time. My brother declared that we weren’t allowed to do anything and that he was going to run away. Our mother answered,

 “I don’t want you here anyway.”

The words singed my brother’s heart. I’m afraid his sense of abandonment might have, right then, made its start. 

The  suicide was always there; on mirrors lined with pallid prison bars,

in glasses filled with liquid reminiscent of aged water, and

 homemade cancer tars.

(All consumed in front of a naive son and daughter).