be my everything

There's a disclaimer because there has to be - I don't want to piss off or insult anyone. If I do, in this or anytthing else I am so sorry. But I've always been honest about faith on here before and I'm not stopping now.

Last week a lady came into the shop and we chatted. She told me about her nephew, two years old, and how he died out the back of A&E while they waited to be let in, with his mum pushing the bed and his dad holding his drip in the air. She tells me how they're all going to wear Bob the Builder t-shirts to his funeral.

A man chips in. 2 years old, he says, that's ok, he'll only be in purgatory.

What?

He wasn't christened, was he? So if he's under the age of 7 he'll only go to purgatory, not hell, so you don't have to worry too much.

There is a kind of Christian that stands in the face of complete tragedy and tries to make a fucking point. They are the reason that I can't do this anymore.

*****

7 days after my birthday, something happens at a party. The next night I'm at the Ag, and one of my best friends puts his arms around me. I lose it, utterly, I don't want anyone near me or touching me, all these bodies and people, all this touching in this tiny space, it makes me frightened.

I feel sick, and guilty, and dirty. And familiar.

Familiar? How can I already know this feeling? If last night was the first time I've ever done something like that then how on earth can this be deja-vu?

Then I remember. Being sixteen and the absolute shame I felt for sleeping with someone I was in love with. Tell me, someone, why I ever let myself feel that way? Thanks to the guilt, the shame, the self-loathing, I ruined something beautiful because someone told me God didn't like it and

I never asked why.

Now, I've done something I actually do think is slutty and I realise just how bad I let myself feel before, how I convinced myself that it was somehow faithful to feel this way over nothing. Nothing. I did nothing wrong. Except lie.

*****

So, apparently, this is some kind of death warrant. My rejection of this, my saying 'no' to this is what will damn me. I wear the hoodie I stole from Catherine to work, the one with 'saved' written on the back and Joan asks me - saved from what?

From what indeed. If I play good, if I keep my legs shut and my mouth shut and force myself to believe that an all-loving God is prepared to die to save our souls but won't give us enough of a heads up to save us from hell, if I think this and breathe this and throw myself against the brick wall and ask to be healed until I'm too weak to wonder why I'm still sick - if I do this, I'll be blessed.

If I walk away, and start thinking. If I find the balls to say actually I feel that sex has been demonised, and there isn't anything wrong with being gay and words are just words and that people who tell other people that they'll burn are the worst kind of people.

If I stop lying, in short, I'll be damned. But I won't be a hypocrite anymore. From that at least I'll be saved.