My brother had a Billy Ray Cyrus poster inside our closet door. He had tape decks and cassettes in there too. We had bunk beds. They were red. One time my brother smashed my face against those bunk beds and broke my front tooth. I cried a lot and he beat my ass. Fear was real then.

Billy Ray Cyrus had a daughter that got famous once. Little girls loved her and she was still little too then and then she got older and they got older too and she wasn't loved as much by those not so little little girls anymore.

My brother was tossed to the curb.

She was tossed aside too — ridiculed for doing drugs, smoking marijuana, having fun just like my brother. I tossed him aside. I didn't speak to him for years. Then I started smoking weed and realized why he probably smoked weed too. Our parents hated each other and we were supposed to obey some guy named God. Some guy that had high expectations. Some guy that made me anxious and scared to live. Some guy that was impossible to please — just like our mother.

Now my brother's getting married in the 'House of God.' He wants me to be in the wedding. He wants me to be a groomsman. He wants me to be a part of his life.

I hate weddings. I won't tell him, though.

He wants me to be something.

I don't know, but I hate weddings. I just won't tell him, though.

I'll just keep pretending.

I'll just pretend like I always have.

I'll just speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not.

Art Kay lives. This is his first published fiction.

Read his postcard.

Detail of art on main page courtesy of Djoxfutura.

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