I used to be the good little church girl,
I wore a cross on my neck so often
That I got tan lines in the shape of all of our sins,
I took it as a sign that I needed to pray more,
I wish I had taken it as a sign that I was only ever going to get burned,
I wish I had know that holy fire still hurts just as much,
That it will still reduce you to ashes and scars
Even if you have bruised kneecaps
From all the time you spent praying and not being answered,
I wish I had known that I was never going to get an answer,
I wish someone had told me that no one was listening

But instead they saw a little girl
That would believe whatever pretty lie they fed her,
That was desperate for attention, for love,
So they told her about the magic man in the sky
That would always be there for her,
But they failed to tell me that his everlasting love
Was conditional,
That I had to stay inside the lines of their scripture
Unless I wanted to be all on my own again,
Unless I wanted to be without a reason to live again,
So I followed every rule they spit at me

I carried my bible with me everywhere I went,
And I do mean everywhere,
I brought it into the bathroom with me
On the off chance that I would encounter sin in there,
I didn’t ever swear
And I avoided boys like they were the plague,
And most importantly; I got quiet,
I stopped questioning things,
I sat with my legs crossed and my lips shut
As the preacher damned half my friends to hell,
As he told me how much they would suffer,
I hid my loudmouth behind my faith
And became the submissive little christian girl
That my family had always wanted me to be

I was like that for five years,
I gave up every single moral I had,
Let them unravel my pride stitch by stitch
Until I was too frayed to hold myself together,
I let them take away my bark and my bite,
And I listened to them when they told me
That if someone p***ed on me the christian things to do
Was offer them forgiveness and then damn them to eternal suffering
If they didn’t repent fast enough,
Five years of my life spent in a prison
That I was convinced was salvation

Then I realized that I could save myself,
And they still aren’t allowed to talk about the time
I stood up in the middle of the sermon
Where the pastor was explaining why being gay is a sin,
And asked if I fell in love with a girl if he would love me any less,
They’re not allowed to talk about the way he said yes
And I left,
They’re not allowed to talk about how half of the church
Left with me and half of them stayed
And how I don’t resent anyone for the choices they made
After a lifetime of being brainwashed,
They’re not allowed to talk about it
Becasue the pastor doesn’t want anyone else leaving,
He doesn’t want anyone else to realize that once upon a time
They had morality and standards
And their ever loving god has drained them away

Three months after I left the messages finally started showing up,
Saying we miss you, we still love you, you can still come back,
It isn’t to late for you to get back on the right path,
It isn’t too late for us to use guilt
To shove our beliefs back down your throat,
I ignored every single one
Because I couldn’t think of anything to say other than
Maybe if you told me I was loved before I left
I wouldn’t have needed to in the first place,
And no one knows that I still pray sometimes,
But Jesus is starting to remind me of my ex boyfriend;
Neither one of them answers my calls,
So I used a picture of us as a dart board
And shelved my bible in my mythology section
Out of spite, hell hath no fury,
And the silence on the other end of the line still burns,
Apparently I have a lot of burning in my future.