This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet there are people stuck in closets because the monsters are on the other side and the darkness has become too comforting at this point. The face of death has become too beautiful to want to turn away. We are hidden, dancing around the idea of being hung as perfectly as that shirt that was “too gay”. We are wondering how to propose to the Grim Reaper because at this point, he is the only man who can “make us straight”, at least in my case. Others would give him a blow in exchange for their soul. The asexuals, though, are finding the words to ask death out on a coffee date. We’re all just thinking and wishing. We’re rolling out our blueprints and studying the structure of surviving instead of accepting that we’re different and actually living. The pride that used to live in us died a long time ago. Maybe around the same time we were in the closets writing our suicide notes. For me it was the day my mother said the idea of me having lesbian friends gave her headaches. Let me not even get into how high her blood pressure would rise if I told her she had a pansexual daughter. “Had”. Now I am but a corpse living among the resurrected by Christ and I constantly ask myself when God is going to baptize me. I ask myself when I am going to stop looking like a zombie from the Walking Dead because, ******* it, I never learned the script or signed up for any of this. I never even wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to sing the songs of my love for her and let the paparazzi spread rumors of how I cheated because I’m that ******* hot. Mother, I wanted to be a singer, but you ripped my tonsils out and told me to smile for the camera and look pretty. But mother, have you ever thought of something? What if she’s the only one I want to look pretty for?

I am Christian. I believe in the
Trinity of the Holy God, The Son, and The Spirit,
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of mankind
I own more than three Bibles
I teach Sunday School every week and
I pray every night.
I am Christian,
And as such I
Hate queer....

Phobia. I can not stand intolerance
And I cry at hatred,
Blood running in the streets,
Fear running in veins,
Running away from the truth.
I am Christian, yet
There are bloodstains in my Bible
And the prayers on my lips
Are for forgiveness for who I am.
The entire story of ***** is
Crossed out, blacked out angrily
In the dead of night
In all 4 versions,
Leviticus is blurred,
Wrinkled with my tears,
Soaked with my pain.
I am Christian
And I am not homophobic.
I know my church won't recognize
Non cis-het marriages,
Leaving entire worlds of rainbows in the dark
The higher-ups insist
Weddings are white, shiny, husband-and-wife, happily-ever-after affairs
That shove me and my friends, my  family, my lovers,
Into closets of heavenly wrath and
Fire and brimstone sermons,
Locked into personal hells of shame
And confusion.
I am Christian
And I am not straight.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He loves me because I try not to hate.
So to the homophobic Christians, I ask:
Who is your God?
Who is your God that supposedly condemns people He has created in his own image?
Your rainbow picket signs are nothing but a cruel mockery of a covenant
Not truly shared by you.
Your tongues are no better than the viper's who called Adam and Eve to sin,
You are the vipers of my world.
Do you think you avoid judgement
When trans teens are killed
By the bullets you spit with your words?
Who is your God,
That tells you to picket the funerals
Of those you hate?
Who is your God,
That refuses to let you open your heart to differentness?
I am Christian,
And I don't need your permission to
Love my God.
Take my scars and tear-stained Bibles,
Listen to my fervent prayers,
Watch my lips tremble when
I listen to my pastor.
I don't need your permission
To love who I want,
In fact I don't want it.
Take my midnight screaming and fear of coming out,
Listen to my frantic pleading for a hand to hold,
Watch my eyes linger on her chest.
I am Christian.
My God doesn't hate me for who I love,
He hates you who refuse to love
While you carry His name, if
Not his blessing.
So I ask again
Who is your God?
Because mine loves all of me,
All 5'6" of queer pride.
Who is your God?

He lives in fear
Some will discover
He lives in disguise
Like a spy undercover.
He lives in suspense,
Did he let something slip.
He lives in madness
Like a bad acid trip.

It’s a topsy-turvy world
Where lying is the stock-in-trade.
False approval from peers
Is the payment for deals he made.
The pats on his back
Are what he does the whole thing for.
The social approval gives
Gifts to him too grand to ignore.

He lives in fear
Some will discover
He lives in disguise
Like a spy undercover.

Pride in who he is
A distant world he cannot see.
An Everest to climb
That threatens his mortality.
He has to lie constantly
Or forget himself accidentally.
Telling the truth will
Remove his sense of morality.

He lives in suspense,
Did he let something slip.
He lives in madness
Like a bad acid trip.

He doesn’t trust feelings
They make of him a criminal.
His relationship with pride
And self-esteem is minimal.
That others can be free
Can never apply to someone like him.
He hears there is liberation
But his own chances are very slim.

He lives in fear
Some will discover
He lives in disguise
Like a spy undercover.
He lives in suspense,
Did he let something slip.
He lives in madness
Like a bad acid trip.