Faggot

-Noun-
A bundle of sticks, twigs, or branches bound together and used as fuel, a fascine, a torch, etc.

-Noun-
Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. a homosexual; a male homosexual.

Okay, God...
Let's address
The elephant in the room.

You know when and how
This all began.
I was 19.
You know that, until that point,
I really had no sense of myself
As a creature interested in
Engaging in relationships
With the opposite sex.
Oh sure, I would talk the talk
The same as everyone else,
But it was like fire
With no heat.
I didn't put alot of thought
Into dating and boyfriends
And all that that entailed.
I figured I was
What Mommie referred to as
"A late bloomer."

When the time came to bloom...
It wasn't what I had thought.
It took me by surprise...
But the point here
Is that it took me, nonetheless.

Why didn't I feel any revulsion?
Why didn't I run screaming from the stairwell
On the day of that fateful, first kiss?
Why did I effortlessly traverse,
For ten years,
Within that mode of living?
I felt like I had unraveled
Some great mystery about myself,
Answered some unasked questions
About who and what I was,
And why I did and did not feel
The typical things other people purportedly did.

If I am really honest,
I admit that I was turmoiled
By the tension between my inner life -
The modes of thinking and behaving and acting
Within my few relationships -
And the tension of my outer life -
How do I exist
Without wounding and scandalizing others?
How do I carry myself
So I am not exposed, ridiculed, reviled?

I tried to avoid You in all this.
I didn't want to address the issue
Of what it would mean
To - what?
Tell You?
You already know.
To involve myself
In a dialogue with You
About what this means
For my life?
Perhaps.

At the end of this month,
It will be six years
Since I have been involved with anyone.
Six years is a long time
To not be on a date
For a mortal who's only in her thirties.
It's more than a sixth of my life thus far.
Circumstance and lack of motivation
Contributed to this period of aloneness,
But I will admit that
It was a relief in many ways
To not have to actively address
Questions and issues about relationships and sexuality.

Of course,
That's one of the things
That flew out the window
During my trip back to New York.

I don't know what to DO here!
What do I DO
With the inclinations of my body
That come in direct opposition
To Your Word?
...Immerse myself in a study of
Biblical hermeneutics
And try to unearth the "real" meaning
Behind the Hebrew and Greek,
Seeking the loophole
To justify myself?...
...Try the Phoenix male dating scene,
In an effort to awaken
Some latent desires
Buried way down deep somewhere?...
...Continue on as I have been going,
And just say screw it,
What's going to be is going to be,
Although I feel if I don't do something
I'm going to spend my life in a netherworld?...

I don't UNDERSTAND!
What is it?
A predilection? A weakness? A spiritual flaw?
A temptation to sin
No more or less destructive
Than all the other temptations to sin?
If so, why does it feel so pervasive,
Tainting and tapping
So many areas in my life?
(Other sins don't feel like that to me,
For the record.)
Is this a test, as Job was tested,
Something I should resist
At all costs?
Is it a defunct, a defect, a dysfunction?
Am I a defunct, a defect, a dysfunction?

O, my Lord God,
WHY HAVE YOU MADE ME THUS?

Well are we called faggots:
Like bundles of kindling wood,
We burn, and we burn, and we BURN
With the unanswered questions
Of our identity,
Our sexuality,
And what that means
In terms of our relationship
To YOU.

I don't wish to consciously displease You.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone,
From a human standpoint.

I am at a loss.
I feel like Al Pacino
In "Scent of a Woman,"
When he exclaims,
"I'm in the dark here!"
I know exactly how
The blind character he played feels.

I am exhausted
From both the thinking
And willing myself not to think about it
That's been happening the past two weeks.
I don't know what to do,
And I'm done trying to figure it out.

Father,
Redeem this life
So dearly purchased by Your Anointed.
Release me,
Once and for all,
From that which binds me...