deepundergroundpoetry.com

Religion

Men once marveled at your beauty—
I still see the flicker of who you could have been.
“You could have had it all,” I think,
And it burns my soul the most.

You clung to holy morals,
Clutching a Bible like a lifeline,
And it anchored you
In a sea of suffering you couldn't escape.

You could have graced the runway,
Dazzling, free, unbound—
But you never closed that book,
Never flipped the preacher off,
Never let the dream breathe.

Instead, you let men break you,
Bruise your spirit,
Tell you to cover up,
To fold yourself small.

Now you smoke your crack
And murmur First John, Chapter Eleven,
Like a mantra for the lost.
Maybe that's why I loathe religion—
The preachers who whispered
How a woman should be,
How holiness should hurt.

You chased it, that perfection,
In dope houses, on dirt floors,
A lie cradled in trembling hands.
Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead—
But He never came for you.
You could have saved yourself,
But the light slipped away.

And here I am, writing my poems
For the world, no regrets—
No holy chains.

Mom, you could have had it all.
We could have had something more.
If only you'd said yes to that modeling gig,
If only you'd closed your Bible,
Flipped the preacher off,
And walked into the life you deserved.

NP
Written by NP_NP (Nina Persheff)
Published
Author's Note
My therapist told me it's okay to mourn the childhood I wished I'd had—and the parent I wished she could have been. So, this is for her, the woman who gave birth to me. No matter how hard I try to stay mad at her, I just can't. She was broken as a child and never found a way to heal from that pain. I've learned that not everyone can claw their way out of hell.
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