They say high school is a jungle. But for me, it feels more like a graveyard. Every day, I walk through these halls, a ghost in plain sight. Teachers drone on, oblivious to my struggle. Friends laugh, but their smiles never reach me. I sit in class, the weight of my own silence pressing down harder than any textbook.
No one sees the battles I fight. The constant ache in my chest. The shadows that cling to me like a second skin. I wonder if anyone would notice if I just disappeared. Would they miss me? Would they care?
Its not like I haven’t tried asking for help, I’ve told my friends about my struggles, but no matter what I say someone else takes priority. Even my most major issues are easily overlooked by my friend’s slight inconveniences. When they finally listen to me, every word is forgotten within minutes. Nobody checks on me. Nobody helps. Nobody cares. Its like I’m some space filler in everyone else’s stories. Not worth thinking about unless I can benefit them.
I began to find refuge in religion. In a world where nobody noticed me, he was the first to make me feel seen. We were equals in his eyes. Not one of us more superior. It was refreshing to communicate with someone without the constant comparisons and jealousy. He was a pure soul, compassionate and gentle. Accompanying me everywhere I went like my own guardian angel. He cleansed me. The murky shell of a teenager that I once lived in was shattered leaving me immersed into a new life. I felt like a child again. His child. Pure and faithful. As our relationship grew stronger I opened up to him about my past. Secrets that I would never tell a soul. All my old wounds and injuries. That was until I realized who I was really speaking to. After confessing my secrets, his light began to dim. As if he was slowly backing away from some wild animal. The white glow that surrounded him faded into a grey-toned pit. His façade crumbling to pieces. I had gotten too comfortable. Too naïve. I had no idea that I was letting my sins bleed out in front of a shark, but now it’s too late.
frost, a beautiful phenomenon that glazes windows, streets, and nature alike.
it crawls it way up walls and onto your windows, glazing them over and separating the inside and outside world. a fragile barrier, blurry from a distance, complex in the eye’s side. yet when it meets the warmth of a curious fingertip, palm, breath, the wall of intricate crystals melts away.
but in this sacred place, there is no warmth to be found.
in the church, it freezes over the colourful glass, blurring the images of men with usually bright, gleaming halos.
in the church, it crawls up the prone form of a child sitting in the pews, hunched and shivering, hands clasped in nonsensical prayers.
in the church, the frost bites.
on the holy day, masses stream in and out of the building, their existence as ephemeral as their time on the planet.
their presence brings no respite for the poor child, left here in the face of repentance.
condemned and dressed in his best shirt, and a tie ‘round his neck like a noose, he repeats the prayers in hopes he will be heard.
even as the believers, the speakers, and the fathers have left, the boy remains. there is nothing to put a barrier between him and his god besides the cold that invades his mind.
it consumes him. it consumes all of him, his brain, his eyes, his fingers, his limbs. it takes all that he has and continues to take his very soul. he knows this is what he deserves. the frost covers his tongue and slurs his speech. it freezes his hand together so he may never break his prayer. until the boy can save his soul, there will be no one to warm him.
The wind howls like a pack of wolves, sharp and biting. Each step I take sinks into the snow, pulling me down, dragging me under. I shouldn’t be out here. Not in the storm. I reminisce on the days of sunshine and warmth and safety. The days before the ice age struck me into this world of numbness. Now, every breath is a battle. I can’t collapse. I cant surrender to the whispers of the wind. Not yet. I know that there’s something out there waiting for me. I just need to find it before the cold takes me.
As I continue my trek, I stumble across a lake. Despite my surroundings being dead, lifeless, this lake was gleaming with life. Perhaps, this is what was waiting for me. The lake lay still beneath the dawn, its surface a mirror waiting to receive the light. Mist curled above it like incense and the air carried a hush, so deep it felt sacred.
My limbs were growing numb, icicles cling to my face like blessings. I was running out of time. If I passed the lake and kept searching, there is a possibility that I wouldn’t find anything better especially not in time. So as the cold wind surrounded me, I took a bold plunge into the water. Each ripple spread outwards like whispered vows, each breath a surrender. Gently, frost melted away from my body, re-gifting my ability to move my fingers. It was paradise, like finding an oasis in an endless desert.
However, as the euphoria wore off the thought suddenly hit me. The lake wasn’t warm. It was only below freezing, but to someone who had spent hours walking through subzero, I couldn’t tell the difference. I knew deep down that I had to get out of the water. I had always known there was something out there waiting for me, and I now knew that this was certainly not it. This was just another life sentence. The snow wasn’t the only thing trying to drag me under. The lake was too, I was just too desensitized to notice. Even cold water feels warm when you are freezing.
When the child dreams, it is always in the same stone-white tones. Frigid. Sterile. Devoid of life despite the countless lost souls that flit in and out the countless pews.
The dream is always the same. The child is sitting in a smooth pew, head down, shoulders hunched– hands grasped not in prayer but in pain, the wood feels liminal and cold as if made from metal rather than oak. Frosted stained-glass windows, filled with images of noble people with glowing halos, somber faces, and flowing robes, line the walls letting in only moonlight. There are no lights from cities. No lights from streetlights. The church is isolating. The Church is a prison. Someone says: “Stand, my Child.” Only, it comes with a wave of rigidity. Then they are very cold, startlingly cold, and there is glass and rot on the ground, and there is blood and skin on the pews. The child lifts their gaze up to the shining statue of the Son, the tones of gold cold despite their warm tones. Blinded, through bitten back pain, they clasp their hands in prayer.
They dream in the same stone-white tones.
They dream; smooth pews and burning skin, they dream of–
“Stand, my Child.” It isn’t said like a name, or a title, or an insult. It’s said like a designation. Like a manufacturing label for a broken, faulty product. For a disappointment.
The Child stands. It knows it has done wrong. It knows it has failed and as it gazes back at the statue of the savior, it knows its prayer hasn’t been heard. Has never been heard. Will never be heard.
The scalding pain comes back as the statue continues to shine, clean and holy. Gold, the same as the statue before it, weighs heavily around its neck– no longer a symbol of faith, but a symbol of imprisonment. It weighs heavy, heavier than the force that comes down upon its cheek.
The Child sags, its soul withering away every time it comes back to this place.
"As I lay in my bed surrounded by the meaningless ornaments of my religion, I can feel him leering. Watching. Judging.
I was raised swaddled by the church, echoes of hymns ringing in my ears.
But, as I aged a presence started to grow inside of me. Something dark and twisted. As I lay in my bed surrounded by the meaningless ornaments of my religion, I can feel him leering. Watching. Judging. Someone my family would condemn. Am I cursed to be the demon that my community reprimands? The mere thought of this latched into my brain.
From that day, I started praying even harder. Knelt with my hands grasping one another as if I was clinging onto my only lifeline. An invisible tether attached to the all powerful presence I had been raised to love. Worshiping my saviour until my knees were grazed from the splintering wood of my bedroom, the crescent shapes of my nails indenting my skin. Nothing ever changed. The burden of my corrupted soul laid heavy on my chest, restricting my lungs. The blanket that had once swaddled me in my youth was now wrapped around my neck.
A presence started appearing before me. I could hear his beckoning voice in empty halls. The shadows in my room suddenly had an oddly familiar feeling. It was him. Staring at me like I was some deformed creature. A mistake of his creation. To him, I wasn’t his child I was his production error.
I was not worthy. My head spiralled in self-hatred. Every moment became a sign. I took every opportunity to repent, to prove myself worthy. I studied the bible daily desperately searching for answers. Surely I could do something. I didn’t want to be evil. I was handed a curse that I never asked for, bound to a life of impurity. After a while, I realised it was never my mind that bared evil, it was my soul. The devil was inside of me. Perhaps everyone was right, I wasn’t possessed by evil. I was evil. How do you repent sins that co-exist in your body. If I was truly Satan, then I was a danger to everyone.
Things really started going downhill from there, I distanced from the world. My mind was now in a fully fledged war with itself. Fighting the need to repent with the idea that I was now a lost cause. I wasn’t ready to give up, but deep down I knew that if I hadn’t been saved yet, then I must not be worth saving.
A meaningless soul in Gods playground, asphyxiated in the blankets of a religion that was supposed to comfort me, but instead villainised me. Delirious with exhaustion, I collapsed. My lifeless body laid in my room, filled with crucifixes and religious propaganda. With the splinters in my knees and the claw marks on my hands, loosing my once fruitful life to the bitter religion that had flooded my head with deceit . I was never evil, I was simply gullible."
"i am not deserving of heaven, and neither is god.
it was always black and white. praise and tired sighs. the light and the shadow therein that carries spite. heaven, and therefore hell.
the idea of heaven and hell had been heavily ingrained on me ever since i was a child. the concept was simple enough to understand. bad people go to hell. good people go to heaven. i only had to be good to be accepted, to be loved, to be deserving of that (un)conditional love my god had to give.
i know that ultimately god had to decide who was good or bad.
how?
why?
what exactly makes a person good? they claimed morality from religion and nowhere else and i beg the question, are we not first humans before we are ever the children of god? and if they claimed that our fate, our lives, our being were predetermined, would that not defeat the purpose of learning? of accepting god into your life? would that not imply the possibility of god creating horrible people simply for them to exist and ultimately suffer in hell? would not there be a contradiction of faith then, if choice was always an illusion?
what exactly makes a person bad? we were all born with sin. we were all born to be unloved. sin carried by our blood, sin carried by faith. sin marked by the hands of our father, the loving warmth of our mother, passed onto the unknowing, unwilling child, stained with the curse always reminding us of the paradise that we could have had if not for the curiosity—the thirst for knowledge, to know more than our god wanted us to know. why was our god so threatened by our knowing? the sin passed on to the poor banished children of eve, now weeping in this valley of tears. why do i, the daughter, have to carry this unconsenting grief for someone who i would never know? why do i have to be cursed to carry the weight of the world that god has blessed me with?
who is he to judge who is deserving to be the blessed or the damned? he cannot judge our dirty hands when his is stained of crimson. what thorned crown allows him to weigh our faults when he has not knelt before the altar on the scale himself? if he should demand sacrifice then i demand a trial. i demand an audience. he will not get the chance to open his mouth and beg for our forgiveness. and i will watch, just as he always has, as he begs for the mercy we were never given. i will extend to him what he has done for us. if he asks about love, i will answer with cruelty. for what else can my filthy hands do but pray? how does he choose whose prayers he gets to refuse?
they say that the dog that weeps after it kills is no better than the dog that doesn’t. their guilt does not absolve them of their sin. they are still animals. but he is still god. and what is a god good for if not to blame? he gives us a gift and claims it’s a price, but who is the lamb and who is the knife? i will ask, ‘behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ and the answer will be a knife to the back, an unfortunate death, a holy sacrifice.
i was always your strongest soldier. i wish you could have chosen someone more deserving. i wear my scars like a cross, iron spikes hammered to me using your very own. i am paying for the very sins worth the rope and the thirty pieces of silver. the sins worth a kiss. would i become a martyr? is my life worth the liberation of the people?
and to that, i will say: i will do as the devils born of god’s sin will do. fall.
may you forgive me, father, so full of grace, from the fires of hell, for i have sinned. i am the greatest sinner, my very own lucifer. and may you grant me clemency, sanctuary—for i am the most in need of it. would you not pray for a sinner of your own, now and at the hour of my death? or do you reserve absolution and benevolence to only those that you deem worthy?
as i kneel here now, my knees scraped and my faith torn, my body remaining a canvas for your holy retribution, i know deep down that whatever my sin might be, that i will do it again.
"The interior of the sensible blue minivan was quiet as my grandfather and I drove through winding back roads. I visited my grandparents every weekend to spend time with them and attend church on Sunday, but to have my grandfather collect me instead of my grandmother was a rare delight. I adored my grandfather, with his endless stories and puerile humor, and felt safe with him amongst the array of dysfunctional adults in my life.
I was young; too young for the front seat, really, but such things didn’t matter to him. A midwinter snowstorm swirled raucously outside my window and my stomach sat heavy and low. Driving in the snow made me anxious, as most things did at the time. I was a fawn of a child, riddled with nerves and prone to conjuring up the most gruesome “what if?”’s.
This was certainly not a trait I inherited from my grandfather. Calm and confident, he didn’t give life a second thought. Though his past, almost cinematic in its trials and tribulations, had played a part in thickening his skin, it was his faith that left him truly unrattled. He placed a trust in God I’ve rarely seen rivaled, an almost inexplicable certitude that left me in awe and a bit queasy.
That was another of our differences; even as a child, I was cynical to the core. My brain poked holes in fables of zoo arcs and men rising from the dead before I had time to believe them. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe; rather, I craved to. I so envied my grandfather’s soft assuredness, or the peace I could sense being passed between the hands of the congregation members at our church but could never grab hold of. I wanted to believe. I just couldn’t.
And yet, I tried. I attended Sunday school and church without protest. I sang hymns and even teared up while doing so from time to time, not because the words moved me, but because there, in a sea of others so earnestly believing, I felt that perhaps, one day, I could too. I prayed obsessively at night, afraid to leave out a single family member or fear, all while doing my best to suppress the feeling that no one was listening. I worried that even if God did hear me, He’d spot my thinly veiled skepticism and leave me alone.
I prayed myself sick, desperate for any answer, any sign, anything to reassure me that someone was there. I wanted- needed- to know that there was someone to look out for me in this life and that there was something after it.
My most relentless anxieties were about death. I thought about it often, much more often than a child should. There was really no potential outcome that was more appealing to me than another; reincarnation disturbed me just as much as the thought of nonexistence. I didn’t want so much change. Heaven seemed to be the best option, milder, but the longer I thought about it, the more my skepticism crept back up my spine. The terms to get inside seemed pretty blurry to me. And what did you do up there, for all of eternity? More praying?
But my fear was so often stronger than my doubt, and in the front seat of the minivan, with hefty flakes of snow piling onto the windshield almost faster than the wipers could swipe them away, I needed comfort.
“Are you afraid to die?”
My voice broke through the heavy warmth of the van like a cold draft. I’m not sure why that was the question I came up with. I’m not sure what I wanted him to say, either; what answer would have quelled the incessant worry inside me, but the one he gave did no such thing.
“No. I can’t wait to die.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I want to get to Heaven as soon as I can.”
I didn’t respond and the minivan fell back into silence, though it was no longer comfortable. I couldn’t fathom why my grandfather was so eager to die when he seemed so content, even happy, with his life. I felt a sense of betrayal I could hardly understand; was it all not enough for him, the big house in the woods, my grandmother, the happy black dog with the red collar that would be waiting at the door when we arrived? Was I not enough for him?
I felt betrayed, too, by God and everything I’d been told about Him, everything He was supposed to be. It seemed to me then that perhaps that was the tradeoff, the piece of the puzzle I’d been missing all along, the reason my prayers only ever echoed back to me: I lacked that readiness, that impatient willingness to, at any given moment, sacrifice it all. I didn’t want Heaven more than I wanted life.
It didn’t seem fair to me to be given something as precious as life and not be encouraged to cherish it above all else, to fear the end of it. To accept death would have been one thing, to want it– to need to want it– was another. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want my grandfather to want to die, either. The peace and confidence I had longed for for so many months didn’t seem worth this passive disregard for life.
That night over dinner, I watched him closely, searching his face for any sign of a secret misery that might better explain his answer to my question in the car, but he seemed as cheerful as ever as he whistled and scooped potatoes.
Years later, when I was long past being too young for the front seat of the car, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. He fought the disease for a short while at the pleading of his family, but stopped treatments before long. He passed during a warm April and the happy black dog went soon after. Since then, I have often thought of that snowy afternoon in the van, the way his answer had hung like a noose in the air. I am left wondering whether he found what he’d been waiting for."
"i kneel to pray.
today
i have a lot to be grateful for, so a lot to say,
and so i’ll have to stay
in this position for a moment
god, please take away any bad omen
and let me be strong
for as long
as i will need to
i do, i do, i do trust you
(even after the things you put me through, i do)
oh, and please spare me such a grip
so i could hold all that i love without letting it slip,
for i love it with every my bone
god, are you there? it feels like i’m on my own,
ARE YOU THERE, ???????
breathing in,
breathing out.
some things are not meant to be said out loud,
for when my faith is scattered by life like fiber from sweater,
i have to remember that it was also planned and it’s all for the better.
i do, i do, i do, — i believe
coming back to a prayer
and thank you…
god, thank you for no new scars under her sleeve.
thank you for the bad and the good,
thank you for the water and food,
thank you for the peaceful neighborhood,
thank you for making me forget
the sound of shooting and rockets,
thank you for my family, big and warm,
thank you for always giving me rest after the storm,
thank you for the money i get,
thank you for everything that i could have had
but then haven’t got,
for i’m not a crazy go-getter
(now)
it taught the patience and turns out it was all for the better,
(even though i was so down)
thank you.
looking up, looking straight.
everything is okay.
i am not too early and i am not too late,
i guess i just have to wait.
thank you.
thank you for not being sorry, but just being fair
even in my times of despair
because, as my mom always says, ‘sympathy that we feel
is just another side of a gloat, ‘
and as the sun reaches my back while others are dying in cold,
i start to believe that it’s true,
i guess i do, i do, i do,
for i’m not you, i’m not a god,
i’m only a simple human,
and it can be that my gratitude is not a pure joy wearing acumen,
but fear masked in the greed
just a pulsing thought
‘what if tomorrow i don’t have everything that i need?’
‘what if in this huge scary world
we are all just an eight-year-old kid
that learned:
he didn’t control what he’d hold,
and he’d have to let go of everything that he’d own?’
and for my father is not a god,
although when i was five he was — to me
i notice now how every time when he finds a coin, he wonders
why is that not the biggest one it could be
god, right now i think that it’s true
i do, i do, i do,
sympathy is just another side of a gloat
and we are sorry for each other,
but also happy that we still can hold things that we love,
things that we own
never it does occur to us that one day we will have to let go,
but we will have to let go
venus, the planet of love, is getting sold,
faces of people we wanted to are starting to fold,
films that we watched and laughed at are getting boring and old,
and after sometime you notice that your wife always puts too much salt
and she is not the same person you loved, and it’s not her fault,
so you will keep it up, even without love, feeling sorry for others who had to take different
routes
but your sympathy is nothing but just another side of a gloat
keep on living until
they say they’re sorry for you now,
which makes you feel tricked
you were not really special, not really picked
it was just easier for you to believe
in god
when you still had something to hold
i used to think that it’s so american to always be regretful
i have this habit now too
(i do, i do, i do)
but maybe it’s just so human? we’re peacefully forgetful
gloatingly- sympathetic
god…
god, i am what you made, pure yet hateful
and today, at this moment, i choose to be grateful
for crawling blindfold
and being afraid, but also in love with this world
for this is actually not so american, not ukrainian, not russian, no israelian or palestinian, it’s
just so human
to betray,
to never say the things that we wish the most we could say,
to hate,
to be afraid of imperfect timing,
to not be able to wait,
to push all of the others in a queue,
to kill ourselves and rue
for the people who have done it before,
to love something with all our bones
and yet to let it all go.
to let it all go
so thank you. thank you. thank you for having me.
i am so grateful that i get to be alive,
that i get to lose and wish i could die
but wake up in the middle of one of these nights
and still choose this scary,
beautiful life."
