Religion Week

"Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."

~Jon Stewart

Humor helps, too.

Also, confession. I wrote this. For the record, this isn't about actual people. Just thoughts.

Bless me father, for I have sinned
It has been five years since my last confession
And I was drunk
So I’m pretty sure it didn’t count.
Since that time, I have done at least 47 things specifically because you told me not to do them
Including becoming a studio art major and a boy down the street named Jeremy
The positioning was awkward and uncomfortable and Jeremy wasn’t much fun either
Worse than that, I have blamed you for not teaching me how to fix a car instead of
remembering
that I never actually asked to be taught.

Bless me mother, for I have sinned
It has been ten years since my last confession.
Since that time, when talking about you to others, I have chosen words
like “wholesome” and “nurturing”
instead of “fierceness” and “brave”
Instead of telling the story of how you faced down
an angry mob
and made them turn away in shame, I told stories
about how you loved me so much that you used to warm my frozen toes
by putting them on your belly.
I made you simpler for others to understand instead of making you wholly understood.

Bless me brother, for I have sinned
It has been fifteen years since my last confession
Fifteen years since we climbed trees and swung from branches so high that we couldn’t
tell the difference between our heels and the sky
Fifteen years since you asked me what was wrong and I told you
that you couldn’t understand because you were a
boy
And so, fifteen years since you thought it was possible that you could.

Bless me sister, for I have sinned.
It has been four hundred years since my last confession
In that time, I have handed you knitting needles when you asked for a
battle mace,
and given you another drink instead of giving that man a concussion.
I have called you a skinny bitch when you’ve lost weight, and I have let us both think that is a compliment
I have allowed myself to feel lessened by your beauty instead of
strengthened by it,
And I have deconstructed the cinematography and lighting of rape scenes in movies instead of
running out of the theater,
shrieking
until my throat bled
And
In quiet moments of reverse feminism,
I have given you a battle mace, when you really did ask for some
fucking knitting needles

Bless me lover, for I have sinned.
I have never confessed.
I have told you I am bad at math so that you wouldn’t be threatened
I have used the struggles of our relationship to create mediocre poetry,
And,
Perhaps worst of all,
I have never told you that I wanted you to connect the dots on my skin with your tongue
And so you never knew that the freckles on my arm make up the constellation Orion

For these and all the sins of my past life, I ask absolution.

Hail merriment, forgiveness, and space
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of regret.