It never got easier
The way obedience usually does,
It gets heavier each year.
I was here in the beginning:
The territory is changeless.
Wasn’t I submissive
When the pastor said my mom
Got beaten because she wasn’t?
If she weren’t a contentious woman
He wouldn’t have to raise his hand.
Didn’t I understand?
When my pastor wouldn’t talk to me
Because my gender forced sexuality
Just like my abusers proclaimed
I didn’t complain.
When I discovered he’d known, for years,
What they did to me in the dark,
But fearing speaking to me
He just let it be.
Then, when I finally took his advice
Found a nice boy; surrendered to yoke
He broke the plan; he broke my heart
He wouldn’t even witness the vow.
I was never really included then;
Nothing’s different now.
I submit to the pastor
My husband picked out
He preached Jezebel was hiding
Inside my soul
I tried cutting her out,
But I never found her
now I’m never whole.
I tried asking him for help
But I’m the most dangerous whelp
The Kingdom of Men knows:
A woman who actually wants to grow,
but they have butchered me all.

When I was still a little child
They dug my grown-up grave.
With open hands raised, they invited me come
A tender thing, trusting, I knelt so young
In the hole they scraped
I became the slave
and all the rest was left unsung.

A companion piece to:
https://viewingcamelot.com/2019/10/31/the-defense-rests/