Salvation.
The concept of taking orders every single day of your life because when your body
can no longer hold your soul, when you still take up space
but not oxygen, when you rot in the dirt
when you’re dead, you might be rewarded.
You take these orders from strange men with nice collars
who burn books and witches and reasons to live.
You have to do as they say because your own ‘father’
can’t look you in the face when he tells you to fear him.

You memorized the phrases that would define your life before you knew what all those big words meant.
If you didn’t yet know how to write all the letters of your name what understanding
could you possibly have of the word
‘salvation?’

If we are all God’s children then explain the freaks.
The ones who are unfit for His glory.
God, if you expect all your kids to turn out a certain way
absentee parenting is not the way to do it.
God, you gave us the rainbow as a promise that you would never flood us again
well god you broke your promise in a big way because
floods of hate and fear are drowning me.
God instead of sending out messengers shouting about the awful punishments in store for me because I thought the wrong thoughts and felt the wrong feelings and dared to do something about it rather than hide away relegated to nothing
maybe instead you should cradle me in your divine arms and tell me nothing in this universe could make you stop loving me because after all I’m who you made it for.
FORGIVE ME FATHER FOR I HAVE LOVED.

God you’ve made the world believe only good little girls and boys deserve salvation well god I’m not sure you measure up to your own standards.
they say you rested on the 7th day but the sin that blankets our lives must have come from somewhere
god maybe you weren’t taking a divine nap. maybe you were taking a “divine night at the strip club.”
seriously god you must have had a pretty dirty mind to come up with some of the sins I’ve seen.
There’s a reason we scream your name in bed. “oh, satan” isn’t quite the same.
and god where did Lucifer learn all of his evil from? casting him out of heaven didn’t erase him; no matter how low an apple falls turns out it still won’t be far from the tree.
why speaking of apples were you so angry when eve gained knowledge? why wouldn’t she trust a snake when the duties of woman are to listen to long, hard things that tell them what to do? if they say “put it in your mouth”, should we argue?
God, are you afraid of the questions we would ask? Because here I am god and I have a lot of questions.

God, the men who were supposed to be our guides to your salvation have done unspeakable things with half of your holy robes still draped across their shoulders.

All the wars and the charities and the hate and the faith and the people who were charred down to dusty memories in your name. All just an attempt to get you to turn your head and look at us for even one second look at me god.
God we outlined you in scripture and filled you in with blood and even if you were not what made us we made you.

Still, we don’t all qualify for your love, your salvation?

God I’m no longer listening to those who use fire and brimstone to burn away the different. God I write and speak and preach my own sermons to scared little girls and boys, little girls and boys scared that they aren’t good enough little girls and boys. I do it because you gave us free will but couldn’t deal with the consequences.

God, if I can look you in the eye and tell you I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve done, why can’t you look back when you call me an abomination?

Salvation is not a one-sided conversation.