Taught In My Youth

That my very nature

was an enemy to God.

My nature—

to observe the symmetry,

to seek the unseen paths,

to contemplate the quiet

woven into the world.

God’s enemy?

I am inherently:

spiritual, spatial, and sensual,

loose, loving, and liberal.

Taught to suppress the self

that feels the pulse of authenticity,

the rhythm of change,

the call to expansion.

My innate values:

authenticity, improvement,

became threats,

branded combative.

My intrinsic worth:

a battlefield,

where intuitive instincts

fought for survival.

How strange to name the sacred

as sin,

to call the very essence of creation

God’s opposition.

And yet, here I stand,

a child of nature,

no longer at war with myself.

December 2024- CC