When you’re taught
that God is the all seeing eye in the sky
as a tactic for behavior and sin modification,
it first strikes the fear of hell into you
and then
Inspires you to get better at hiding.
Yet the hiding doesn’t stop at from others,
but you also have to hide from yourself.
If God knows everything,
you can’t let Him know what you’re thinking,
so you delete the data
before it reaches conscious thought
-snap goes the rubberband-
concealment the art behind your
disassociation.
There’s no comfort in God seeing me
at all times;
Psalm 139 becomes a threat
Shame on being seen.
Shame on being fully known.
Shame on having sin and being a sinner.
…did He really die for me
If I struggle to live nicely?
They say He knows everything I’ve done
and still died for me,
crucified for me,
but how can that be
when my self-flagellation
(Because you said I was bad)
doesn’t beat the night out of me,
but the light out of me?
Is it really such a surprise that being taught
obedience by a belt
as a way towards submission
or forgiveness withheld unless I say I’m sorry
(While neither actually engenders your affection),
created a generation
abhorrent to rule by judgment?
Deconstructing from a family
who only says “I love you” if we listen,
getting gold stars for memorizing verses
-But berated to my parents
for stealing the picture
of my ugly face
that I asked for you to take down
and you wouldn’t.
So, I pocketed me instead.
Me, even if it was your camera’s taking,
and threw her in my home trash can
so you wouldn’t steal me
out of yours-
A pretty messed up family system
with fifth graders hating their bodies
For maturing.
Silence kept us isolated,
but some brave ones started talking.
Our counselors noticed a theme,
so it was in the writings of their books
and our alias names
that we found ourselves through others
and realized our neighbors have the same
secrets, pains, and blubbers.
Yes, this terribly damaging system
is beginning to crumble,
and we are finally excavating
The loving God out of it.
One Who never agreed in the first place
with their sacrificial system;
Whose eyes saw us
while the shadows of broken souls
distorted heaven’s gaze,
making Him in their likeness
when the opposite is what’s true.
So now when I see
Billowy clouds gathered
looking like the most ginormous eye,
wispy lashes a quarter-mile long,
I don’t want to look away.
Instead, my voice begins to shout:
“Watch me!” and “Look-it!”
Complete