Cross to Bear

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I am at that age, questioning my morality and mortality.
It seems an issue more evident now than ever.

What if I haven’t actually changed, haven’t developed from my younger, more devilish behaviours? What if I question religion more than ever?

I’ve always thought a relationship with one’s god is a personal one, and in some sense, it shouldn’t be spoken about.

I mean it, for those who believe as well as those who don’t, two ends of the same spectrum, if you ask me.

I studied religion at uni, read philosophical analysis on this idea, this great thing in the sky, this guideline on how to act, how to feel, how to think.

I even have a cross tattooed on my leg. How silly and fickle. My devotion to God is now my sin to bear.

In some way, it’s brought me a lot of comfort, yet my faith wavers, always.

I look around at my friends, they’re miserable most days, pulled up on quarrelling disaster: the cost of living, the missed touch of a lover, the state of the world.

It seems someone is always struggling. Some are born into suffering, women have it built into their bodies, and people of authority utilise it to control others.

If I were honest, I’d say I think about killing myself every day, or dying, to some extent.
The only reason I don’tare my friends and family, but also, for some dumb reason,
the judgment that would be passed upon me.

Every time I go to take action, I think of the anger and misunderstanding. How is my suffering not worth freedom?

I ask that the hole I dug be ignored, as I only want to lie down for the evening. Rather, I get on my knees, and I plead for my life, for the love I have for others, for the hate and hurt to be washed away. If I cannot lie down, I beg just for a night’s rest with no troublesome thoughts.

It doesn’t come, it never will.

I cry myself to sleep, try my hardest to break the cycle of sin that my history brings upon me.

Somewhere along the periphery, there’s a way out. If I continue to love and to have faith, it has to work, right? I just have to believe. But then I always come back to the same dissipating thought:

Why would god forgive me if I don’t forgive him?