FLEEING THE BORDERLINE

If GOD was like you, I would flee.

Occasions of affection

And fleeting moments of kindness

Do not overcome the multitude of sins

Your silence simmers hot

Until your wrath boils over

Burying our world in soupy orange

How many times have I been burned alive

And managed to survive?

Your cutting criticisms

Your biting insults

Your suffocating disappointment

Your overbearing disapproval

All the ways I couldn't please you

Because you simply can't be pleased

All the ways I couldn't appease you

Because you hurt in ways

That even you can't see

All the ways I can't seem to make you happy

Because your happiness was never my responsibility

Moments of softness made me hope

I mistook episodes of kindness

For a change of heart

Extravagant overtures of love

Promised safety and predictability

But you could never give me

What you were never offered for yourself

Parenting from hidden places

Cluttered with unprocessed trauma

I watch you relive horrors I don't know about

Grappling with shadows, fighting to protect me

Your demons escape unscathed every time

While my psyche gets riddled

With lacerations and bruises of every kind

I realize that I can't save you

And that you don't see that you need saving

From the abandonment you most fear.

Its unconditional love you have been craving.

What you want from me

Goes far beyond honor and respect

You demand blind loyalty, codependency,

And reverent worship.

To tolerate your dangerous outbursts

Offer my bare flesh to your verbal lashings

To cower and placate and prime your ego

To thank you for tearing me down repeatedly

For what you interpret as weakness.

You've chosen your own hell

And renamed it as freedom

Beautifying it with scriptures

And comforting Christian rituals,

Strange but all too familiar.

But I know darkness when I see it

It abides in you and you in it

And I will not dwell there with you any longer

Go to your vengeful GOD and tell Him

That I am fleeing Him for good

Whoever it is you serve

That uses the Gospel as a prop

Hiding behind faithless words

Giving demons free reign to wreak havoc in your life

Take your so-called peace as far as your west is from my east

Take your Poisonwood Bible and drown it in the depths of the sea

Save your imprecatory prayers for your true enemies

And take your bone-deep self-deception far away from me

Because now I can see

That its you who needs my pity.

-Jayma Anne M

9-12-2025

Stay Thoughtful. Stay Lifted.

If you want to be "wowed," check out her rendition of this song in her Tiny Desk concert. Its the final song. I didn't use it because I didn't know how to clip the video and she cusses too durn much. Of course, the whole concern is incredible but this song is performed around 14 min, 10 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBMGvHHkr9Y