Faith, an Elegy

I miss God sometimes
Rather, I miss when I could believe
He might be the father to stand in
for the father I never had.

Like so many others, though,
in the fullness of time
I fell upon that belief 
with claws and teeth

It wasn’t enough 
to cast off allegiance
I wanted to hurt 
that imaginary being

I wonder if this 
reaction has a relation 
to the urge some young girls have
upon the onset of puberty 

to mutilate, burn, or otherwise 
ritualistically torture their dolls

mindless, gleeful violence gloating
over the remains of 
childish affection

for some it appears a necessary development
the artifacts of a once sweet and loving child 
not merely destroyed
but desecrated

memories of happier, more loving times 
slaughtered, the more cruelly the better
so that the more practical 
sensible adult may take the place
of a child who somehow
vanished in a single night’s sleep
went out to play that one last time
came back
ate dinner, went to bed
and that was that. 

Of course, God was nothing like a sweet child
making up stories and enjoying tea with her toys
but a cranky old man who created us flawed
and hated us for it

therefore He had to permit His only Son
His avatar on Earth to be mutilated, tortured and
killed oh-so-slowly (those glorious Romans
being such expert practical, sensible adults)
that we might be washed clean in the blood
wrung from agonized flesh

ah, and that final detail—

the son of heaven
crying out for his father
but the father has withdrawn 
and so the son dies
humiliated, in pain
alone

salvation born in plain hateful meanness
for some reason this was necessary
the practical, sensible, and 
most God-like thing to do

The story should have lost me at the
sticky, stinking, so gratuitously spilled 
gore washing us clean

we’d been treated like rotten little children
promised something better if we only behaved
while the Favored Ones were as rotten as could be
and rewarded before our faces
right here on Earth
right where and when it counted

so we acted out like rotten little children
at once rebelling against our father
while most faithfully imitating Him.

This is far from 
the Greatest Story Ever Told
but it’s certainly among
the oldest.

From the forthcoming collection Nymphomagic Electroshock and Other Middle-Aged Complaints.
Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence Roy Aiken.