Faith

Most of my childhood was spent in church
every Sunday like clockwork,
teaching me in the ways of selflessness.
I believed taking on other people's pain
was a noble and loving thing to do
and I have done that my whole life.
I have immense guilt, I always felt sinful
for needing to put myself first sometimes,
for the way I love not being enough
to heal anyone, or save them.
It is not my responsibility to save others
but that’s not what you’re taught
surrounded by adults telling you hell awaits
anyone selfish, doubtful, or different.
We must protect those we love from harm
but I watched my father cause harm
to my mother, to my sister, their tears
marking my failure to be a good person.
I saw how he used guilt to divide us,
I saw my mother’s pain became my sister’s,
I saw my foundations crumble before me
as I stood a powerless, small child
and knew my soul was marked by it forever.
That was the end of my faith in my father
when I knew there was nothing to look up to
in him or in my mothers absence too.
I needed something to believe in, the world
was too confusing, too scary, too aggressive
and unkind, so I turned to the only person I
had. The only role model still there.
She left religion, I always followed her.
but I just replaced one god with another
and tried so hard to be a good disciple
not knowing that the truth was
I never could earn the love promised.

Limbo

I
Carbon-copies of our abusers
Wander the streets unscathed.
Our friends turn into clones
Once the cycle begins again
And we watch the lights die out.
The pattern follows us-
It rinses out half your soul
And the rest bleeds out slow,
Draining you from the inside
Until your organs give in
And your smile melts away.
Countless dead dreams,
Repeated familial atrocities,
Maiming each others hearts
In a ferocious battle for death.
When we see it take hold
We’re watching a disintegration.
It crawls slowly in both ears,
Burrows underneath their skin,
Burns itself through their retina
Straight into the brain,
Gnawing away who they were
To replace them with the empty husk
We hoped they’d never become.
The same nasty faces look back,
Multiplying its crowd of hatred,
Feeding off itself incestuously.
The ranks are closing in,
Soon we’ll be the only ones left
And I wonder more every day,
Are they truly alive like we are?