When Everything Becomes a Lie (Poem)

This poem is meant to embody the desire to hold onto your faith but no longer being able to deny the visceral response in your body to anything "christian;” and trying to sort out the truth from that which was only ever a means to control you. There is pain in this poem, maybe there can be hope, too. Whatever you need that hope to be, let it be found. 

When Everything Becomes a Lie

I can’t distinguish you from the lies anymore

I can’t look up and hope

Because prayer has become synonymous with pain

You too let me believe a lie

You too asked me to trust

Only to let the floor out beneath me

You too told me you loved me

Only to leave me hollow

I can’t enter your house

Because it too has left me

To clean the debris from scars

I used to refuse to believe I had

Cut from pastors & leaders

Building their own empire

Fortresses to protect their shiny, perfect halls

Lined with signs that read

“Welcome home” “You belong here”

Whitewashed tombs for the mass graves left in their wake

So I leave the disillusionment behind

No longer do I trust

Believing good intentions

No longer do the ends justify the means

No longer will I add to the firing squad

My white flag leaves me mid air

Left to ponder all the questions I used to have an answer for

And, truth is, I have no idea who you are

Or what you want from me anymore

Everything feels like a lie now

Screaming, “Danger!”

Here is manipulation

Here is gaslighting

Here, God is a box

And you’re either in it or out

All along, all I wanted

Was to love you and to be loved

I wanted to do the right thing

Looking back, I can only see graves

The bodies left for dead

Behind a bus they told us was a home

The empires I helped build in your name

Which only pretended to worship you

A when I look down

All I see are the bullet holes over my own body

I wonder if I’ve ever heard your voice at all

I had only wanted to believe

So I convinced myself I did

Maybe you’ve never been the God

I was taught to believe you were

Kristen Wessels was raised in Bellingham, MA but now resides in Worcester, MA. She has been writing poetry since she was in the fourth grade. Today her work is mostly autobiographical exploring themes of grief, depression, love, identity, and most recently- deconstruction. When she is not writing, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, her cat, and doing anything creative.