please don't be gay (for the Dead Gods comp)

Twenty years old
belly full with child
the prodigal daughter comes home
and my mother takes my hand
drags me back to that hall
and those hard seats
where hypocrites smile

How easily they forgot
the curses that rolled
off god-fearing tongues
when at 16 my boyfriend
outed me
the bisexual girl who
wasn't down for a threesome
and I wandered round
the halls of my school
feeling like the devil had cursed me
personally

Nevermind that my boyfriend
raped me
or that I miscarried
or that a month later
he knocked up the girl
who was meant to be
my best friend

Nevermind my favourite pastor
who told me to just not sin
was cheating on his wife
after she was diagnosed with MS

Nevermind that I carried
Hell in my heart
and dreamed about
opening my veins
when my mother told me
"it happens"
when I found the courage
to speak out about
every wrong someone else
placed in my hands
and told me was my fault

And I'm not sure
I'll ever really know
what sent me back
to that house of lies
maybe it was loneliness
or desperation
or sobriety overcompensating
but I never found God there again
though I still believed
I was destined for Hell
because I was a woman
who loved women
and had the history
of a woman
still lingering on my lips

According to the Word of Men
there would be no place
in Heaven
for a sinner like me

And even at 20
belly full with child
I couldn't fully lie to myself
about who I was
though fuck I tried
to be anything but gay