possessed by light.

i. 

you’ve never known what to do with your hands, so you fold them together in your lap. if you focus hard enough, you can almost feel the bite of the rosary beads on your palms, taste the bile on the back of your tongue. the congregation in your head sings the backing track to your shame, so you sing along. 

you always sing along.

ii. 

the priest says that being gay is a sin, and your mother’s voice in the back of your head screams her agreement. you bite your lip, pull your sleeves over your hands and avoid eye contact- what is a boy who likes boys anyway, if not a fish in a barrel? you can feel their eyes on you, feel the judgement pressed into your throat like a blade. one wrong move, and you feel like you’d shatter completely. you wonder if anyone in there would care. you don’t even know if they’d notice.

iii. 

for the first time in a long time, you swallow the lump in your throat. your mother wouldn’t approve, the hateful god that they preached wouldn’t approved- but that’s just how you know it’s right. it must be right, or else you wouldn’t be this goddamn happy all the time. you’ve found paradise, but it wasn’t in a book or a prayer like the old people promised it would be. paradise has hands, a warm smile, a heartbeat- no bite in your palms anymore, just the smooth of his thumb along your heart line. any god out there must be a loving god, you’ve decided- no hate filled god could make a love like this. he made it sweet, made it warm, made it holy.