I never loved Jesus I just loved singing. The way my body filled with adrenaline at the sight of a choir of candles. The deep sadness of wailing chords and the fire of my brain's holy spirit. The serious intonations of a preacher speaking without thinking of anything other than leadership, speaking about ears to hear, speaking about the blind leading the blind.

Was he a good man? I suppose he tried to be and I doubt I would ever have directly murdered someone who was trying to be a good man. That's why I left him. That's why none of it made sense any more. The guilt someone else imbued me with. I was born into a swaddle of white linens and told that I had soiled them with the blood of Christ.

So, they said to drink his blood to cleanse myself of guilt and this is why I do not kneel. This refusal is the man in the back pew standing up and screaming unexpectedly, his middle finger raised toward the cross, his mind shut to the people.

Love without a man, a hero, is possible... I think.