It brought peace; love.
Understanding of the world around me.
Hope.
Guidance.
It was a fence so I never had to worry
if I was safe or making the right choice.
I never had to think for myself;
someone did that for me 2,000 years ago.
But just as there is no day without night,
good is a fragile woman
who is always accompanied by her life-partner
evil.

It also brought judgement on others
and judgement on myself.
Superiority.
Lack of empathy from anyone who thought or
felt different from me.
It hid the work ethic organically
installed in my bones
to search for answers;
factual truths.
It kept my philosophical mind on lock-down.
Never to create;
always to accept.

I look back now
half missing my naive self,
half feeling sorry for her.
Now it simply does not live with me.
I can’t prove it’s real,
I can’t prove it isn’t.
So I live in ‘I don’t know’
and yet I’ve never felt more free.