(Dis)Belief

Haunting every step, every breath
are the arguments from the night before;
too late to take back the words
that had ravaged her mind and begun the war.

Uncertainty and doubt not allowed
in mother’s house, the house of her God;
and as she walks forward, going nowhere,
she recognizes that it’s all just a fraud.

Behind her, she knows they’re dying,
mourning the loss of their child.
Living and breathing won’t be enough,
not when her mind has been defiled.

She cries, because it’s all she can do,
wondering if maybe the forgiveness
they so passionately preach will cover
their daughter’s faithlessness.

Time passes and she’s forced to go home,
but she finds herself facing the cold shoulder,
a cruel and graceless punishment for
letting go and growing older.

Her mother won’t breathe a word to her,
won’t even look at her tear-stained face.
Her father tries fruitlessly to make amends,
maybe talk her out of her fall from grace.

She begs and pleads for them to understand
that it’s not just some rebellious phase,
that she really just doesn’t see truth in
what had always been their ways.

But they don’t care to listen anymore,
her tears and their pain already forgotten;
she plays the parts they insist she play
and just accepts their smiles, silly and ill-gotten.