Worshiping at the Altar of Authenticity

A Letter from a Flaming Fag to the Church

Good ol' Christian love

Book cover by Dr. Kim O'Reilly

To the pews and kitchen tables lined with righteous, saved sinners:

I was a tender, curious four years old

The first time I remember

Realizing that

I'm attracted to girls

I don't remember the first time

I heard my parents say,

"Homosexuality is an unnatural

Sinful perversion.

Girls can't be with girls

And boys can't be with boys."

But I was a girl

And I knew then that I was born to die

I've policed my own thoughts

Since I was able to form a sentence

Tell no one my secret desires

An unconscious pact I made to survive

But I couldn't contain my entirety

I remember the brutal sting of

Loving words spoken

With a forked tongue

And wooden boards busted

On my Flesh to strengthen my Spirit

I gripped the counter and cried

While all my sins were punished—

I mean, purified—

Out of me

One...Two...Three

Two strikes if I got lucky

I remember sitting across

From a counselor

With kind eyes and intentions

She held my hands

And spoon-fed me bittersweet

Miracle cures

While attempting to purge my demonic

Queer ailments

Her poison just stopped my heart

I died when I was 16

And the Holy Ghost

Haunted my corpse

I hated being alive anyway

With every proclamation

That people like me deserve

Pain in this lifetime and the next

I learned that I would suffer

To infinity and beyond as penance

You all taught me that I am a sin

The Original Sin

My very existence a stain

On your elaborate tapestry

Woven with patterns of hypocrisy

You say that Our Creator is perfect

According to the moral blueprint

You have mapped out

With certainty to eternity

God doesn’t make mistakes, you say

But he created me

And if I'm honest

I still hate being alive

Because I'm already in hell

You wipe your red hands clean

Still elevated and celebrated

In heavenly places

Yet because I worship

At the altar of authenticity

I'm doomed to dance on searing coals

With the rest of the flaming fags

Well, I say:

Let the music play

And turn up the heat!

So to the pews and kitchen tables

Lined with righteous, saved sinners

And the saints looking down too:

Fuck you

Fuck you

Fuck you

With all your finger-pointing

Bible-thumping

And “truth-speaking”

You expect me to be

The pinnacle of morality and perfection

But I’m not a priest

So fuck your confession

LOVE WINS.

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