A Heretic’s Erratics
Is there ever a way out of me? Is it possible to cut myself open from the inside, to physically leave my imperfect vessel and search for one that does not bring me to temptation? For God has told me that should I sin, it is better to chop off my hands and feet rather than to drown able bodied, and yet something paralyzes me every time I go to fetch the kitchen knife. Is it pain? Perhaps it is. But what is more painful, I wonder. To live with the knowledge that I reject what was bestowed as the greatest gift — my truth, my salvation, my cross to carry, or to suffocate my spirit’s cries by turning a blind eye to the discrepancy between what they preach and how they act. Oh, to be God, so able to dissect the layers of truth that make up the complex manners of what is supposedly His best creation. For I do not understand, and I fear I will never understand, the concept of a good person, for it just sounds so morally grey to me. What is good? What is a person? Who makes these definitions? I shudder to think that the world is built on the notion of good versus evil, because I have seen that good people can be bad and that bad people can be good. To create the concept of eternally good entities or vice versa seems so shallow to me. And yet, such heresy, as it is implanted in me, is not something a good person should say. Oh, to know the right thing to do.
I drew a line from my shoulders to my fingertips with a fountain pen. It seems I went too deep, because the ink is red instead of black. Is this what you call washing away the evils of my heart? Painting it every other color besides black? And yet the black is still there, obscured, but there, for you pushed it in my bloodstream. You said I would be clean. You promised. And here I am as broken and as helpless, perhaps even more so. Clean the black, but not just it. Clean the red, the blue, the green, the yellow and brown. Clean and leave nothing but a blank sheet. Is this what it takes to be a good person? Then drain my blood and leave me empty. I am sick of perceiving people as pure only to find out the white in their veins are paint.
My knees have turned red and black as well, painted by the grit and dust on the floor I knelt. God, I begged. Show me. Lead me. Or if you refuse to, then take me away. To be trapped in such purgatorial limbo is hell. I am not dead yet, why do you refuse me life? My spirit, my breath, they came ragged and tired and in need of water. Give me water, for I thirst. Or is this desert a part of my cross? It’s too much. Here, my hands, my feet, my heart, my soul. Please let me go. You have everything I could ever give you. Why do you want more? Is it not enough? I gave my breath to serve you and you still demand the smallest speck of my existence under your command. Are you really God? Why do you demand such a sacrifice of me? I am not God. Perhaps you should cut yourself open, for isn’t God supposedly an infinite deity? Or are you telling me that omniscience has its limits? Your blood must be ever flowing, your throat free of thirst. Do you mean to say that had I not turned myself inside out, that would have ceased to be the truth?
Oh, to be able to afford omniscience.
