Sacreligion poems on Hello Poetry

Alexis Mayer Jun 2013

I knelt beside my bed last night
looked at the crucifix above it
and pretended it was God.
Truth be told it’s a ceramic cross
that I was taught to believe in.
Stare at it, confess your sins, absolution is yours.
And that’s what prayer is.

I spent 12 years in Catholic schools.

School taught me little about God,
Other than how to recite the Our Father
And why I should remain a ****** til marriage.
As well as how lucky I was
To have my parents pay for my schooling
Just so I could say prayers I didn’t understand out loud.
My parents worked hard
For my sister and I to wear uniforms
and say the rosary 5 times more a year than we would have.
I wasn’t taught faith
Or how to seek kindness.
I was told to accept Catholicism
Or risk damnation.

My family went to church every Sunday.
We said grace before our meals,
And we thanked God for food we bought ourselves.

This sounds atheistic.
But it isn’t.
Because I believe in God.
However I do not believe in ignorance.
I do not believe in hate.
I do not believe in discrimination.
Three things the Catholic Church practices.

I’ve never believed that saying “****”
Was a one way ticket to hell.
I never believed that missing mass
Would be more suffering I’d endure in purgatory.

I believe in a God
That accepts us
For everything that we are.
A God that will not mind if
We didn’t spend an extra hour
Kneeling in a pew
Listening to another human
Preach to us HIS interpretation
Of a book
None of us will ever
Fully
Understand.

I don’t believe in a tall man
With a long beard.
I believe in a young girl with brown eyes.
I believe in an oak tree that’s branches have
Seen more than I ever will.
I believe in everything.
Because God is everything.

I’ll kneel by my bed tonight
And look at my ceiling.
Because my ceiling is as good as any crucifix.
I’ll say my prayer
For everyone
Who recites their Bible
Fears God
And squeezes their rosary tight
In hopes that it will give them something
They’ve always been lacking.
Faith.

Leah Riley Mar 2012

Sacrifice is a Virtue

blind promises lead to
a bruise festering beneath
stifled utterances and apologies
prerequisites for templates
of things never meant
but nevertheless
permanent

charred ochre and Prussian blue
churn into an acrylic wound
cringing
mesmerizing
all the ways to gouge into silence
just to purge verses that sound like
Not next time, I swear
I guess this is what they meant by
abstract

I should’ve listened
when I heard from a backdrop
that perfection is silent
behind clouds of luminescent cataracts
gushing
scorning
what has yet to be illuminated

but all this talk of perfection
makes me want to burn at the stake
there must be something
to ruin or save
because sacreligion isn’t free

Angela Alice Richards Feb 2020

Lakota Sacreligion

Superficial ceremony, sacrificial ceremony. Lest the medicines never condone your offerings — forked tongue. I was told many women came before me, like lambs, the chosen ones, or the selected few based upon your windigo taste. I stood before you in a slaughter room full of people who adore you, but I don’t. Heyoka hechya sni, siceya ephe, little do they know you are the backwards one. The man who turns into ashes, The White Buffalo Calf Pipe story, you’re the one. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, who in my own community can I trust?

No one.

Come Lakota princess and place your bet. Little did I know I was a pawn, “play the game” often said. Young and naive. Eager to please, eager to believe. Eager to achieve. Eager to succeed. Futures can be bought but can’t be sought, really it wasn’t foreseen by me. Cashing paychecks and ruining lives. Profiting from false promises and school integrity built on lies.

I prayed you went back from whence you came... my prayers had to be powerful against the powers of your manipulation, expert and masterful.

I offer tobacco and know that this world is better off without you. Lest unci maka forever reject you from her womb. So you will always remain in ceremony. To drag buffalo skulls hooked onto your back for all of eternity, in perfect circles around what you’ve done to me. Lest your flesh never break free from the bending of my cottonwood tree. Your back and chest riddled with scars by the relatives you hurt in this life. Your spirit never to return back to the stars because you are not ready to be honest with the community with what you really are.

A monster that wears two silver braids with long arms and long legs.

You may always fool others with your smile but you will never fool me again.

I’ve decided not to continue the sacrificing of my own spirit but to endure the burden of truth-telling. Now, the community calls me “that girl”. Stained by you and your wrong doings. Tainted by you and all your wrong doings. Vengeance is for the Creator — I can’t tolerate that type of loyalty. Narcissism has a way of shaking your dreams like a peyote rattle in a sac religious ceremony.

#nativebillcosby

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