it's the day before my driving exam and i still don't know how to parallel park. i'm sitting in the passenger seat as my mother drives to our old church. this space no longer holds me. i stare blankly at the bug smeared across the windshield and hope my silence will be mistaken for submission.
we sit in the right wing of the chapel, half way up the staircase. i make eye contact with the girl i made out with last summer in the youth pastor's office. she is all sour cherries, collarbone tan lines, and the taste of salt water on my tongue. she abruptly turns and whispers something to her friend. the friend gasps, clasps her hands together, and starts to stammer, "Dear Lord.."
love the sinner, hate the sin. this love is choking me.
i know they pray for me over melancholic sermons, stale pizza, and gospel songs. then they write slurs on my locker, ***** me, and try to turn me straight all for the glory of God. i wonder if anyone ever thinks to pray for them.
the pastor starts to list things he considers abominations: bruised avocados, atheists, wokeness, his ex wife. my eyes glaze over.
as a child i learned "lesbian" was a bad word before i learned it was a part of my identity. i was taught that my love is inappropriate, immoral, nothing more than a **** category most commonly searched by the same boys that tell me to rot in hell.
thats when it starts, the same speech i've heard my whole life.
i am a sinner.
my sin is love. my sin is loving so deeply that i was able to reframe my thoughts, overcome the preconceived ideas planted in my mind as a child that preached hatred and shame and passing judgement onto strangers.
for once, i do not stay. i do not endure it. i stand up, fix my skirt, and climb over my mother, her eyes fixed on the pastor, nodding along. i walk out of the chapel and 2.1 miles down the highway. my mother does not come after me.
there are parts of me that she does not know how to love and has no desire to learn how.
my family always jokes that the dog is my mother's favorite child. i watch the way she meticulously brushes her fur, holds her when she cries during storms, and loves her regardless of the mud dragged down the sterilised corridor of the house.
i take comfort in knowing she cares about something, i just wish it were me.
my mother tolerates me. she is my mother and i love her.