Catholic Love

Content Warning: Religious Homophobia, Suicidal Ideation

Rowan Sheffield

Why does the world fall on my shoulders?

Shackles coil around my throat

as I hear the ghosts of my past pass through my flaws.

I find it easier to speak when I’m drunk,

dragging words from my throat 

as I beg my mother’s God to save my soul.

I can’t tell who’s speaking anymore.

Is it me?

Or is it my ancestors?

Have I disappointed the people before me?

Falling in love with so many fantasies

that steal small pieces of my soul.

Getting naked for new people, time and time again—

more people have seen my body 

than have ever given me flowers. I know that I’m attractive,

but am I only a body they can use?

Is it wrong to crave a love 

that is just out of reach?

Can I be loved in a body that doesn’t feel real?

As bile rises in my throat

I write these words as they fall from my bones.

Etched in blood, I lick my wounds

like the dog Mitski sings about—

I am betting on losing dogs.

Pretending to be a saviour to those around me

as if I’m not asking around where my saviour is.

I like taking care of others,

I tell myself.

I like taking care of others 

because it heals a part of me 

that was never cared for. 

Why do I keep praying to a God I don’t believe in 

to fix me?

To stitch the holes in my body and make me kneel,

to cower in fear?

I asked God to protect me 

from the hell on Earth He placed me in.

Did He make me gay 

to punish me for living?

I crave the day I grow wings and escape this place.

Rereading the last page of a book that’s already ended—

setting it on fire never changed the story.

God had already damned me in the Bible’s verses.

Because I thought maybe 

I could change them.

He won’t let me change them.

I can’t change them.

My God, please let me change them.

I pray you never hate yourself that much again—

that you punish someone else for loving you.

Staring into the water,

I hear a chorus of dead voices 

that sound too much like mine,

and I want to go.

Bottle to my lips.

I close my eyes and let myself fall. 

The bass swells and everything tilts.

My chest syncs to it,

rewriting my heartbeat.

Sweat drips from the ceiling, the walls, the bodies.

Everything is too loud.

My mouth opens—something spilling out:

gospels, hymns, prayers, panic.

Screams drowned in holy water.

Are you even listening?

The rosary tightens now.

Hands bound with beads that bite,

like it's alive.

Like it wants me gone.

Or saved.

Or both.

I wake up choking on nothing,

air thick like the incense in a church that never let me in.

The rosary is still there,

cutting circles into my skin—

proof I belonged to something 

even if it never wanted me.

I’ve stopped asking for miracles.

Stopped craving wings.

Some bodies were made to be altars.

But some were made to burn upon them.

Lying still,

I let the silence press in,

bones heavy with a prayer I never believed.

Tongue dry from begging.

If God wanted me 

He would have taken me already.

But I’m still here.

Still here.

Still.