to those who also struggle

Lent continues
with minimal amounts of participation by me.
I enter Holy Week with the
mereness and muchness
of actionless awareness
of a period that feels deeply sacred
and only vaguely familiar.

I'm mostly aware of my loneliness -
specifically within the so-called
"community" of faith.
The community that has consistantly required me
to deny my self
in order to be accepted
and considered a valid part.
The community that I ambivalently left
and later proudly denied as being connected to me
in any meaningful way.

And yet I believe.
I hope.
I long
for the healing and reconciliation
and the orgasmically celebratory
embodiment of beauty and creativity
that Christ offers.
I long
to love and be loved, and I have
zero tolerance
left for false and twisted forms of this
"community of faith."