“I’ll always love you,”
you said
and at the time
i believed you,
believed the notion of pity
under thinly veiled expressions-

oh, he’s ashamed,
oh so ashamed
oh what else
was i to be when
the hand that feeds me
feeds me scriptures damning me to fire
for being
while i’m burning under the weight of my own skin,
my sin,
God’s teeth seething
at the image He’s created
so unpleasing,
so appalling,
God please heal me
of this feeling,
this unnatural sealing
of love unholy,
and if it takes the flowing
of poison through my veins
to clear out the devil
then so be it,
i wept

and still i believed
when you shielded me
from unrighteous couples
on the screen
that something
inherently infernal
shook within me
when i breathed,
and that night
when i went to crash
into a tree
i believed
that when i bled
i’d bleed evil,
and in my head
i begged for your forgiveness
that i’d never give you
a daughter-in-law
or grandchildren,
that still
in all my successes
i’d never reverse the failure
of showing you me

and still you question
why never have
i believed you
when now
you say
“I’ll always love you.”