Work Text:
You meet God for the first time. You are 9 years old. He appears in a dream and tells you that He loves you, and you will yourself to love Him back. His touch is scalding. You wake up, and you do not feel loved.
You ghost hands over skin. You are 11 years old. No matter what you do, you are unable to remember how it felt. How it felt for divinity to grace your sinfully human vessel, and how you shuddered and hated it and were ungrateful for it all. You press a hot iron to your skin. It burns with shame. You are not any closer to Him.
The weight of a limp body presses against your lap. You are 13 years old. “Kolya,” your mother breathes. Her lips stop moving. You know she wanted to say more. You silently pray for her to awaken, for her to tell you everything. He isn’t listening to you. You do not remember His touch. A coolness flushes over the corpse in your arms. You will not feel loved again for a very long time.
You quickly discover the dilemma it is to remain pure. You are 16 years old. Your pastor preaches that evil stems from our hearts, and is regurgitated through our actions. You decide that you want to be rid of it; that a heart is ever so limiting. You awake in a hospital the coming morning, a mission failed, an attempt regretted. You do not feel any holier.
You jump off a ledge in search of freedom. You are 21 years old. For a brief moment, you feel unbridled by humanity’s inherent evil; unshackled by the constraints of a beating heart and a disobedient mind. A hand grabs your arm hoisting you back to where you started. You tell him you never intended to fall and he pretends to believe you. He walks away as if he hasn’t clipped a bird of its wings. You are trapped.
You meet someone that makes you feel loved for all you are. You are 26 years old and your heart soars. You do not feel any less trapped than you did before him. The man touches you and feels closer to God, The man touches you and guilt weighs on you like a heavy coat. The man touches you and you are betraying Him. To devote yourself to this man is a crime against your faith. To stray away from him, to remove him, is a crime against your heart. You ponder which is worse.
Not for the first time, you cradle love in your arms. You are 27 years old. Bloodied fingers are all that is left of him. You wonder if this was ever what you wished for. And oh, you curse God. For the very first time, you denounce Him and feel a tangible rage burning beneath your skin. You interlace your fingers with the Russian’s and feel free, feel dead, feel unbridled. You feel infinite. And for the last time, you jump off a ledge. You have found freedom, and all the same, let it make a lesson out of you. And distantly, blasphemously, you wonder if Jesus had loved Judas, thought of him, reached for him, when humanity burnt him at the cross. You hope he had. Selfishly, you hope he had.