The Night I Learned How Not to Pray

I was laying on my belly on the middle of the living room floor

I was watching

Howdy Doody so

I’m guessin’ it was right around four

When I saw my baby brother tumblin’ from the top of the stairs

He was lying limp and silent and the blood was tricklin’ through his shiny hair

When my mom saw little brother, she said “

Hon, you’d better run and get your dad.

Her voice was high and she was shaking so

I knew that this was bad

We stood out by the mailbox watchin’ her and dad and brother drive away

And I didn’t waste no time,

I got down on my knees right there, and

I began to pray

I prayed into the evening never even took the time to have a bite

I was sure if

I prayed hard enough that

God would make it right

We were at the kitchen table long past bedtime when we finally got that call

And I knew that it was over when my sister slammed that phone against the wall

That was the night

I learned how not to pray

Cause God does what he wants to anyway

I never did tell my mother and

I kept it from my sisters and all my brothers

But that was the night

I learned how not to pray

It was forty-one years later when

I took my brother’s picture out of a box

I hung it on the wall, sat across from him and

I began to talk

When the evening started,

I didn’t know what

I was going say

But before the night was over

I’d told him all about how

I’d learned not to pray