NaPoWriMo Day 7: Combined prompts again. Write a poem in which one of your identities contends with another of your identities (prompt 1) as they relate to love (prompt 2). This poem was difficult to write. I have a very complicated relationship with religion, faith, and spirituality, and this is something that has haunted me for the better part of a decade. When I was about 14 years old, I began to feel like I could not honestly go to my Catholic Church anymore—certainly not as the person I was becoming. As I grew more aware of my multifaith ancestry, multicultural identity, and my personal understanding of love and sexuality, I began to feel exiled from my faith community. I saw all the ways in which my body, my honest existence, was not welcomed in my previous faith community. I heard old religious education teachers tell me about how my family would go to hell for coming from a non-Christian upbringing. I lost friends who felt that the sound of me praying in a different language and cultural context sounded a little too much like “the Devil’s tongue.” But I could not lie about who I was. I could not pretend that this fabric of my being would someday go away. And so I banished myself from Christianity, from the church. I exiled myself from God. I believed I was unworthy of any faith because I was made out of too many. I am still figuring out this part of my life. Nearly a year ago, I had an epiphany in which I realized: maybe God would not have banished you; just these people made you feel that way. And now I am working on understanding what this realization means for me, and for my relationship with God. I still haven’t found any answers. I’ll let you know when I do. #poetry #poetsofinstagram #nationalpoetrymonth #napowrimo #day7 #identity #love #faith #religion #christian #catholic #god #brokenfaith #multifaith #multireligious #relationship #healing #newbeginnings
