The Virgin Mother

My mother finally read my blog.  When I asked her what she thought, she took a moment of silence before saying:

"It's artsy and pretentious, but I still love you."

So that's a resounding vote of approval.  She did say she loved the guest post, but she always did love him more.

I was raised Catholic.  Thankfully, my mom taught me from a small age that guilt is a useless emotion, so I'm not plagued by the debilitating guilt that most Catholics seem to eat for breakfast.  In her opinion, there's no reason to dwell over something that's already happened, because there is nothing that you can do to change it.  You can only learn from it and move on.  She drilled this into me for so many years, and starting from such a young age, that I've never really experienced that emotion.  Which might make me a serial killer, and has definitely gotten me into a large number of fights with boyfriends when they realize that I'm only really apologizing to make them feel better.  Since she is a Methodist, and only agreed to raise me as a Catholic because my father was one, I wonder if maybe it wasn't a defense against the shaming that the church tends to put into people.

I adore the Catholic church.  Technically, I suppose I would be considered "agnostic", but I love the way that Catholics do things.  The rituals they go through are (SACRILEGE) almost pagan at times, and the saints and the candles and the confessions, it's just such an ornate way to worship.  They don't do anything half-assed, and they are so much more forgiving than any other sect.  I joke a lot that anytime I fuck up, I'll just say I'm sorry, do a quick rosary, and I'll be fine again.  I would love to visit the Vatican, and movies/books about the mystery and intrigue and the secrets are just wonderfully juicy.  So yeah, I like Catholicism for all the wrong reasons.  But I do love the thought of putting on a black dress and a big dramatic black hat and standing in the back of the church, sneaking away from my family to go attend mass secretly, and smoking a cigarette afterwards in the parking lot looking all mysterious.  Because I'm god-damned artsy and pretentious.

I know you will all be shocked and surprised by this, but I wrote this next piece about a boy.  (GASP!)  It was yet another of those situations where nothing was "official" and I got led on and then got my little black heart broken.  So I drank a shit-load of everclear and wrote this.  AMEN.

Get Thee to a Nunnery!  (Also titled: Jesus, ya'll)

I clutch my chest to staunch the bleeding and my hands come away red with stigmata.  My sins weigh heavy on me, forcing me down to my bed with my arms outstretched in crucifix.  The nausea overcomes me again.  I wait for this wave to pass, knowing that another will follow it shortly.  The sacrificial wine I pour down my throat does nothing to consecrate my soul, it weeps for Him.  As if the whore of Babylon has any tears left in her dry and rotting carcass, as if she dares cry after all the men she's bedded and hearts she has ripped out.  I long for the numbness of yesterday.  Yesterday, before the pain came again like a dark Judas in the night, slipping a knife into my side, and ripping away so much of what I cared for in this world.  For I so loved the world, and now it seems like a torture box designed solely for me.

They speak of over-dramatic, and over-emotional, but what could one dare say when you feel like the first woman ever placed on the earth, alone.  Alone in the darkness with nary a friend in sight, and I know that without love (somewhere, sometime, with someone) I must surely die.