dear God,
i am here to ask for help.
i am here because your holy house
does not feel like home
and the wooden floors of a church
are not as welcoming
as the carpeting in hell,
and i would like to know why.
dear God,
i am here to question you.
i am here to ask why
we should trust your angels
when Lucifer now goes
by a different name
and burns unholy bodies
in his fiery inferno,
and i want to know why
the people in the cathedral said
you were sending help for my family
and no help came.
dear God,
i am here to damn you.
i am here to damn the hospital room in which my grandfather
lost himself forever,
in which i sat paralyzed with fear,
in which my mother cried and cried and we left reeking
of sadness and psychosis
and we prayed to you every night but
NOTHING EVER CHANGED.
dear God,
i am here to ask for forgiveness.
i am here to ask for forgiveness and
to beg you to stop punishing us
for things we cannot undo,
for things we cannot take back,
for wounds that will not heal
and scars that will not fade
and for you to give us
a second chance.
dear God,
i am here to dance in front of you.
i am here to shake my hands
in your face
and recite my risky words
and read passages from the Bible
like i am speaking profanities
and wait for you to stop loving me
and condemn me for my sins
because i want to see if it is true,
what they say.
dear God,
i am here to tell you a story.
i am here to tell you
about a family of people
who were abused and destroyed and treated like animals
and who, yes, did
eventually grow into animals
but that is not to point because
they also prayed to you
every night
and asked you to help them
every night
and now they tear at their flesh while lying on their death beds
and writhe in your hands
while they slip away from this realm
because they do not want to die,
and they are afraid to die,
and they are dying left and right
AND ALL THEY EVER DID
WAS ASK FOR HELP
BUT YOU REFUSED
TO HELP THEM.
dear God,
i am here to show you
a picture of my mother.
i am here to show you a woman who you never gave a chance
and i am here to tell you that
you let her bleed and you let her burn
and you let her
reach the brink of her sanity
and you did not lift a finger
and she is now
the strongest woman i know
WITHOUT you.
dear God,
i am here to tell you about my father.
i am here to tell you
about an abused man
who would die for you
but by the rules of the Bible,
will never make it into heaven
and i am here to tell you
that this man deserves gentleness
because he has only ever received fire
but by the rules of your Bible,
he will only ever receive more fire
AND THAT MAKES YOU
AND YOUR BOOK
EVIL AND CRUEL.
dear God,
i am here to tell you about yourself.
i am here to tell you
that it is difficult to love you,
and i want to know why that is.
i want to know why it is so difficult
to find evidence of your kindness
but so easy to find
evidence of your cruelty.
i want to know why,
if you love us so dearly,
it is so easy for you
to send us to a fate
of eternal pain and misery.
dear God,
i am here to tell you
that i am leaving,
and that this is no longer
a cry for help.
I AM HERE
TO THANK YOU,
so thank you.
for everything.