“And I want to tell all of you right now, even when your friends, your teachers, your family, your society, even when they all say you’re a mistake, you’re not. Because He made you, and you are not an accident, and I know some of you bear so many scars from sin and hurt, and you are so afraid to love again, but He will not hurt you, He will not leave you. So let go of your past, let go of your fears, and for those of you who want to be saved, to be free from your chains, stand up, surrender yourselves to Him, because He will always love you, stand up, stand up, He is there…”
But I wring my hands in my lap and I try not to see, try not to see all the silhouettes of people around me rising, and then the pastor says “Don’t be afraid,” and I whisper to myself, “I should be up there,” but my legs are locked and my body weighs a thousand pounds, a thousand pounds of guilt, of understated crimes I am too afraid to cast away into the flames of redemption, because they are me, this entire gruesome divulgence in the howling wreckages of the sane and the whole, the pure and the vindicated, this bitter war that rages on underneath my ragged breath and withered skin, the battle that I cannot seem to vanquish, the struggle between this night I have slept in so long, this nightmarish slumber in the company of the gritty demons that all have a million voices and yet the same face, my face, that rip at my flesh and bite off at my heart and poison my blood, and the light that beckons me, will free me from these seven waning years of hell, because it burns me, singes my unholy wasted self, because I am so undeserving, because I’m addicted to these cycles of massacring suffering, because I am so afraid, so afraid, and I do not even know what I am afraid of anymore…
And I close my eyes and clench my fingers together and curse under my breath when the tears begin to roll, because I know what I am, a coward, a bloody recluse savoring the wine of the devil, and I feel the trembling in my heart, the unforsaken shaking that I know, I know so damn well, that I’ll never be saved, because I’m too afraid of betrayal, I’m too afraid that even then, I’ll betray myself, and I will just be covered in the ruins of my blasted failures again…
I’m so sorry, I think, so sorry, that I cannot seem to lay down my sword, I cannot seem to think, that I mean something to people, because it never seems so, because I am always disappointing and running away, because I am worthless, because, because, because…
And the prayer strikes at me with a thunderous blow, and it leaves a molting bruise of angry violet that lingers on my cold skin, and I keep crying, because I don’t even know why I’m like this anymore, why I turned away so many chances to be saved, to only come back here time and time again, when there’s nothing but me, broken, unwanted, filthy me…