Many people claim God isn’t real
yet continue to speak,
“If it is in God’s will.”

Many people claim God isn’t real
yet will pray,
“God have mercy.”

Many people claim God isn’t real
but continue to recite scripture
in His name.

I wonder if they do this on purpose,
or if part of them still believes.

Maybe religion treated them wrong,
gave them no alternative but to leave.

I don’t blame them.
It’s hard to feel alienated
in a supposedly
“open community.”

Or maybe they’re in denial,
afraid of a higher authority.
Perhaps they know they haven’t been good,
that deep down, they never fit
the Christian standard.

But as much as they say they don’t believe—

we will beg on our deathbed
to get into a heaven we do not believe in,
as we are all just contradictions within ourselves.

It might be regret,
survival,
logic.

But in those final minutes,
you’ll pray to a God you deny
because no matter how you try,
you cannot accept
your own nature