#religious trauma poetry

[aphrodites-serenade]

Disease

I look at childhood pictures of me and parents fondly

Knowing that I will view them differently years later

I mourn for the girl in the picture, knowing that she's what her parents taught her to hate

A fictional character is received with loving arms by their parents

And I hold back my tears poisoned with jealousy

A hand that is warm and inviting

Will point to the exit when I reveal myself to be different

I shouldn't be here, eating dinner and laughing with them

My dad brings up the same kind of people each time

Insults and curses leave his mouth as his teeth tear through his food

My mother agrees and laments about the time when the world was good,

When people were normal

I have learned to listen quietly, so that my tongue may not betray me

So when the church celebrates the Binding of Isaac, I remember to bite down

He tells us that life is not about what we want, it's what God wants

My parents eyes are glued onto the pastor and I feel a knife stab my chest

The pain would lessen if I weren't so close to them

But when I come back from school, they smile

They embrace me in their arms and I pray that this is not the last time

[visualprojects]

[kick3dpuppy2]

do you ask the worms in the dirt to kneel before you? the ants in the grass? do you pull off the wings of the moth that flies away? is the beauty of creation best appreciated with the threat of destruction looming overhead? which is more beautiful? the doe that cannot see you or the doe running from the barrel of your gun? to god it's not the doe, it's the lamb the sacrificial lamb raised for destruction that he can watch every moment of it's sorry existence, running and playing in the fields, knowing that it will die at his hands that maybe it won't even be afraid when he takes it in his arms, because he's done it so many times that its parents will watch, unknowing, trusting and god will slaughter this lamb the way he's done so many times before, practiced hands carving flesh with a well-worn dagger, because god is a shepherd didn't you know? and we're his sheep. or god is a wolf, didn't you know? a wolf in shepherds clothes. practiced teeth carving into flesh with a well-worn smile

[lesweetweirdo]

How would Eve — a child of innocence, created after Adam — ever know thay what she was doing was wrong?

How would she, with no concept of anything, ever realize the consequences of this one act?

How can someone without the knowledge of death ever conceptualize what that would mean?

And why should she not want to be like her creator? Her father? When all she knows was that He was this embodiment of greatness and love?

Should we really blame such innocence when she knows nothing?

[allamericanb-tch]

the first time i learned about abraham and isaac, i asked my father if he would sacrifice me too, if God asked. 

“God would never ask that of me,” he would say.

we talk about how abraham felt, we praise him for being a perfect follower of God, but what about isaac? 

how would isaac have felt, knowing his father was prepared end his son’s life in the name of God?

you tell me that you love me, but if He commanded you to do the same, how could you say no? 

it was only a test, and God is merciful because he spared isaac.

but you should have failed the test. instead of failing me.

because i would watch the world burn before i put you on any altar.

[wilde-words]

if i am doomed

then gladly i fall

if am damned

to hell i will crawl

a smile in my eyes

for no greater prize

but to finally be warm

for once in my life.

[poeticblogname]

i can never get past this. / like a pillar of salt watching everyone move on. /my stone cold eyes watch cities burn and cities born / yet i am still here, on for the rest of our days. / my arms embrace the cold body of times that have long passed. / i try to cry out for forgiveness, for just one more chance / one more chance and i won’t do it again, i swear. / please, just one more time, just one more dance. / and one thing that’s never been answered is my prayer. / hazy faces and sheet covered bodies circle whats left of me at night. /

an unfinished poem about not being able to move on, heavily inspired by Lot’s wife in the old testament

[morgannotlefay]

This is My space between

        I was not made for the angels;

These stone feathers were never My choice.

Cumbersome wings were grafted onto My skin,

Breaking My back, My lungs, My voice.

        I was not made for the fallen;

These sins nailed to My hands should never have been yours to decide.

you scorched devilish horns onto My crown,

Scarring My hope, My faith, My pride.

        What I was made for is none of your concern;

you have taken My choice, My right, My safety.

Saintly wing in sinful hand, I give an almighty wrench;

you will not take this cup from Me.

        Fractured feathers, blood, and marrow crawl earthbound.

Airless and in agony, bruised breaths I take in.

Relief bleeds from My pores—this garden of pain I suffer is worth it;

I have finally torn out My aching, unsuited wing.

        Someday I’ll rip out its match and cast My horns into the sky,

That day will come on its own—when I have the strength to try.

        I will tear down Heaven and walk through Hell,

And in the space between, I will heal.

                    I wrote this a while back as an entry for a Poetry contest The last 2 lines are still so profound to me and I wanted to share this with anyone on this site that may be dealing with religious (or any kind of) trauma. I hope you find your Space Between, where you can heal.

[thecowboycadaver]

[ Beloved ]

She won't understand who this man named "God" is or why I plead with him not to take her from me.

Her mind has grown far too weary

Her bones too brittle

Her joints too tired

And her paws too sore

[sad-poets-society]

In Luke Chapter 1, we learn that Mary was a virgin, she was highly favored by God, she was blessed among women. Is it too difficult to see then, why the night my virginity was stolen, so was my belief in being blessed and favored?

My viriginity was stolen, my faith in the goodness of God was lost, and the idea that I would be favored or chosen forever disappeared from my mind. Don't get me wrong. I didn't lose my belief in God. I wholeheartedly believe he is there, I just no longer believed God was good all the time (and all the time, God is good). Because if there is a divine plan, a reason for everything, if he gives the hardest battles to his strongest warriors, then he chose wrong. Because I was no longer his strongest warrior. I couldn't handle the battles anymore. It wasn't the enemy that worked his way into my head and filled it with lies. It was religion. It wasn't the evil serpent that made me feel unworthy of Eden. It was the mother Mary. It wasn't Lucifer who dragged me down on his fall from grace. He simply kept me company on my own fall.

So as I sit here, in this single sitter bathroom on the floor of First Baptist, while my kid sings Jesus loves me from the top of his lungs, I cry. I cry for the fact that I never had the chance to feel worthy, I cry for the fact that I will always be skeptical of filling my children's head with the idea that God is so good, because he wasn't so good to me. I cry for the fact that they love Christmas and want the full christmas story experience with the barn and baby and that bitch Mary because I can't. I don't see the nativity as my innocent children do. It fills me with anger and dread and the feeling that His divine plan for me included losing every bit of self love I ever had.

So go tell it on the mountain all you want to, I'll stay here in the valley with my doubts and hurt and hope my children can make the climb without me. And pray to a conniving God that he let's them out of this childhood with their sense of worth in tact.

[ashes-and-loveletters]

Another bastard poetry child...

Look, this one came from a deep primal need to write at like 4am last night. It is a bastard of a poetry and needs a hug.

Prompt from P!ATD song 'Lying is the most fun[...]" so that's disturbed... and Girl in Red for the vibes

Spoilers! (CW): ruff break up (implication of trauma), mention of blood, can be interpreted through the lense of domestic violence or SA, though that wasn't the intention- no graphic depiction of either. Possible interpretation of addiction too, again, not the intention but there are themes of it. Religious/blasphemous themes at various points.

Interpret it as you will! Enjoy!

Feel free to analyze or criticize, both are appreciated, but be nice :)

I need some vodka or smth stfg...

‘All of it’

The golden chalice breaks on the cement flooring…

Your hands fall to your sides as I reach out-

My ornamental suit creases in my panic.

You fall away from it all, again, again.

The deceit in between the shadows close in.

Bad ideas swarm around young minds of ecstasy-

Thick air fills lungs that haven’t seen oxygen in weeks.

Explosions on the horizons approach as the night exhales in relief.

Cracked glasses on bloodstained crystal nightstands…

You hit the ground with a scream-

I stumble, trying to keep myself up through blurred vision. Blurred lines.

Your trembling hands go unnoticed as of yet.

Utopias of what we could’ve been haunt our peripherals.

Poison from those around us feels bitter on my tongue

-sweet though it may be on yours…

The gagging of a few hundred has nothing on us.

Rotting frames supporting rain-soaked stained-glass windows…

The humidity of your breath is dizzying.

I pray to my long-forgotten god to let you stay a moment longer-

You say the devil can only save you now.

Silencing of a stopped clock, how it pierces-

Slow and sudden moments of cognizance, sobriety.

The pang of a life never lived outside of our imaginations.

The prayer that if nothing else, it was worth it. All of it

Eyes opening to another delusioned day…

I wash my tear-stained face-

You let my memory fade,

And I am tarnished by your touch forevermore…

[dr4gme]

[seraphim-eternal]

dead to sin, alive in God

[kick3dpuppy2]

in the image of god

if you lean close to me, i'll give you a secret, clasped in my fist like a fly i caught it in church, buzzing next to the priest like a bumblebee chewing holes in the choir's song like a moth gnawing at the holy book like a termite you weren't born with sin inside you god burrowed into you, useless as a winter drone discarding his body in your heart because he had no space left for it in himself

[lesweetweirdo]

"A conversation with god"

I sit with my silence and think about god.

I never pray anymore,

And I don’t particularly wish to.

But I sit with my silence

And I feel like I’m sitting with god again.

I used to ask him for reasons, a purpose;

Answers to my unending questions.

As always, no response ever came.

I don’t believe in god anymore.

It’s too painful to think about now.

But sitting in my silence,

It feels like having a conversation 

with him all over again.

[asoftepiloguemylove]

GOD LOVES YOU, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU // GOD AND SUFFERING

Andrew Joseph White Hell Followed With Us // Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers Questions About the Father // Brittany Broski Why I Left the Christian Church // Clarice Lispector (tr. Katrina Dodson) "The Departure of the Train," The Complete Stories // @/katabasiss // "Shiizakana," Hannibal (2013-2015) dir. Michael Rymer // Xooang Choi // Ocean Vuong "Prayer for the Newly Damned," Night Sky with Exit Wounds // The Vaccines Wetsuit // Mitski I'm Your Man // Fall Out Boy Just One Yesterday // Hélène Cixous Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kafka, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetaeva