Sinner

i. the catholics all call me a sinner, a heretic, an evil straight from the gates of hell. i’m just a child, i’m just a child, i’m just a child and i know they’re wrong. god is no hero and they are not righteous. to condemn a child is to condemn the future. you despise what you do not understand. you impose rules upon the world to make sense of it. but i assure you, the world does not follow within those arbitrary rules. they exist only in your mind. you condemn a child, you condemn the future. but you cannot comprehend that there is a future beyond your bones.

ii. i dare you to scream in all the cathedrals now. no one is listening (no one at all). if you came here looking for god you came here far too late. the only god here is me.

iii. i died i died i died. i live i rise i am. i am. veni, vidi, vici. i came, i saw, i conquered. i remember you once called me future, you once called me new, you once called me loved. i never wanted to fight. i never wanted to bear arms (joan of arc whispered in my ear once, neither did i, but sometimes there is no other choice. in order to protect, in order to safeguard, even the benevolent protector must take up arms). but i am not made to sit back and watch. i cannot keep idle. the burden of my stolen innocence lays on your head not mine. the burden of this war lays on you.

iv. i am a sinner, yes. i am not afraid of your arbitrary rules, your impositions, your misconceptions, your laws, your corrections. so condemn me, condemn me, condemn me, call me a sinner (call me broken, call me disgusting, call me hellbound). sweetheart, i’ve already got the keys to paradise and if i’m going to hell, i’ll be going down smiling. i’m alive, you see. i am alive. i have lived, i have lived, i have lived and i do not regret (father i do not repent). at least lucifer does not expect perfection. god’s salvation is a cold empty one. i’d rather burn.

v. i want you to know, eve regretted nothing. she savored that first golden bite, savored the feeling of knowledge coursing beneath her skin. so beautiful, so gorgeous, so wild. there was never any shame. there was only a choice, and eve said, “if the truth will be denied to me, i will take it for myself.” so she lifted up in defiance (you gave me breath, but you also gave me free will and autonomy, i am not yours to control) and she bit down, hard. it tasted like blood and sweetness, like sin and promise, and for the first time, god felt fear. he had created something with a mind able to defy, able to hope and reach and dare and dream of beyond here, beyond now.

vi. i would much rather be ashes than dust. i would rather my spark burn out in such a spectacular blaze that it leaves scorched earth in its wake than i would my spark be stifled by rot. i would rather be a fiery meteor, every atom alive in my shimmery blaze, than a sleepy and permanent planet. humans are meant to live, not just exist.

vii. so condemn me, condemn me. call me monster. i embrace it. i was created to strip lungs of their breath, to destroy pretty little things and burn them to the ground, to bring the world to its knees and hear my name spoken only in whispers. i was always going to be a monster in your eyes. in mine, i am only human. so condemn me, condemn me you pious fools. call me monster, call me sinner, call me broken, call me heathen. i am all of it and more. i am alive. i hope you find your peace on the pews of your chapels, i’m sure your god is listening. perhaps someday you’ll see a flash of white and enter the gates of heaven. just remember, all the gods have fallen before. they can fall again. did you know they once called julius caesar a god? perhaps god has his own brutus waiting in the wings.

viii. i am scorn, i am defiance, i am trench warfare and empty guns. i am cigarette smoke and lungs blackened with time. i am monster. yes, yes, i am wild. i am the wind that makes breathing hard, i am the ocean and the battered shore. name me witch, name me salem, name me lover of the evening coals. name me dangerous. i was always some fae, some siren, some succubus, but i do not exist for the sheer purpose of beauty. i do not exist for you and i do not exist for your gods. i am teeth bared in defiance, a match lit and a match dropped. i am cracks in the glass, i am death (persephone’s name always meant bringer of darkness even if all the textbooks forget to mention it), i am a murder of crows watching, waiting, flying. i am lightning cracking open the bowels of the sky, i am wind shearing apart clouds, i am more than just a pretty girl.

ix. you can try and subdue me (“kneel,” “repent,” “beg Father for forgiveness,”) but i soak my lips in gasoline and light a match. i am made of fire. i will love who i love. i will do what i want to do. i will smoke cigarettes and marry sinners, i’ll lie and steal and just you watch. god won’t dare smite me. i terrify him. i am skin and muscle and bone and i will not cover my beauty in modesty and deny myself my happiness. I BOW TO NO ONE. my knees will not bend for a god who does not want me, and your god does not want me in all my imperfect perfection. i am everything he couldn’t even imagine happening. i am rebellion, i am fire, i am fallen angel and brutus waiting. i am the ides of march, i’m archangel.

x. we call our ships, ‘she.’ we call our war machines, ‘women.’ we compare women to black widows and vipers. and you’re going to tell me that it’s not ‘lady-like’ to scream, to take up space, to fight and demand respect? you’ve looked at nuclear bombs and been so in awe you could only name them after women. don’t try to downplay my power.