it dawned on me as i
brushed my teeth this
cold and frigid Sunday morning
that Christianity is predicated on
caricatures of morality and desiccated
imagery guilt-tripping and manipulating
the emotionally malleable with sycophantic
fantasies of sempiternal enmity
simmering infernally within dogmatic
magma melting mundane minds

we aren't made in the
image of the invisible
and the more i study
the face looking back
in the mirror i can't seem
to find a single similarity
between you and me

you've spent nearly fifty years
in service to a deity Nietzsche buried
half a century bent-kneed but
somehow i'm the one who
needs to try an open mind

in the face of such
deafening and deadly hypocrisy
is it any surprise i rose
in revolt against this
putrid apparatus of control

it's sad
you see
you fancy yourself an image
of the Nazarene but you're
so unlike your savior
a Sadducee dancing like a cobra
to the whimsical melodies of
snake-oil peddlers so

by all means
pray for me
the clouds can't hear
your desperate pleas this
galaxy is apathetic to our
finite and fragile existence
a momentary blip on the radar of
a fourteen billion year old universe

yet you possess the audacity
to believe an intergalactic being
instilled you with predestiny so
you can judge and condemn just
like the villains in
your beloved fairy tales

tell me the truth
do you even read
the lines of red bled
across the ancient pages
of your gospels or do
you just pretend that
Jesus said whatever
makes you happy

clearly you fancy yourself
the center of the universe but
as much as i hate to be
the bearer of bad news
the world revolves around the sun
not the Son of Man

i'd rather brave the depths of hell
than grovel before your
narcissistic King of Kings
i will never beg for
you to forgive me
i freed my mind and like
a canary in a coal mine i'm
insistently pointing towards the exit
so crucify me if you will
even you couldn't escape the irony

abandon your holy text for works
of art and philosophy and science
your scriptures are a tale
told by an idiot
full of sound and fury
signifying nothing

i will not relent in my
blasphemous semantics
nor repent for my perceived iniquity
your Christ is interned within
an unmarked grave outside Jerusalem  
and before long now we
will all join him
though admittedly not in
the fashion you'd imagined

there is no feast prepared
for my inevitable homecoming
so keep your ring
a golden band reminding
those who read the
anthologies of history of
property and slavery

i'll deny until i die
i won't bind my mind to
your tepid theology
i am not the prodigal son