Do you ever laugh?

God-

Do you ever laugh?
I’ve never seen you laugh. At least not in any of the pictures I’ve seen.
You just look really pissed off in most of them. Why?
Is it stress?
I had stress once and it made me break-out in a real bad rash, right around my nose. It got all sore and red, even a little blotchy.
You don’t look like you have a rash in any of those pics.

Maybe the artists who painted you just wanted to make you look mean so everyone would be afraid of you.

Why so pissed off?

I had a mean uncle once. What a wad he was. He used to call my aunt “chunky” after she beefed-up a little, making her cry a lot of the time. But the worst thing he did was make my cousins cut a switch (limb) from their mulberry tree, then he’d whip them with it.
Jeez.
Needless to say I wasn’t too sad went he went.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe you’re not mean at all but just pretend to be so the world doesn’t fuck-up.
Maybe, deep down, underneath that nasty gaze of yours, you’re really just a big pussycat.
I hope so.
I don’t know if I can handle eternity with someone who kind of looks like my uncle, lurking around scowling at me everyday. I got enough of that shit as a kid.
I was thinking.
What if I were to paint a picture of you with a big shit-eating grin? Would you get all pissed-off and give me cancer or something? I won’t do it if you’re gonna mess me up.
Think about it. The world would love you and you wouldn’t scare the shit out of kids anymore.
Your weekly church numbers would probably go up too!
I’m thinking some shades, maybe a Yankees ball cap,—sort of modernize you a bit, right?
While we’re at it, would you mind if I painted me in the picture next to you, maybe with your arm around me like we’re friends or something?

I had a picture taken of me with a Phoenix Suns basketball players one time, he had his arm around me like we were friends. Anyone who saw the picture asked me how I knew him and I always lied, saying “we grew up together and we’re close friends”.

I won’t tell anyone you and I grew up together, but I would like to say we’re at least friends.
We are friends, aren’t we?

High Five,

Diego