Their love is a hymn I will never be a part of,
a prayer I was never meant to finish.
They speak of salvation as if it is a house
I refuse to enter,
as if faith is a door I have locked myself out of.

But I have knocked.
I have waited in the rain,
hands frozen against the wood,
listening to the echoes of their Amen.
I have begged to be let in.

Yet they call me lost.
They call me blind.
They say God is the way, the truth, the light,
but all I see is how their love
stops where their faith begins.

I am not their child, not truly.
Not if I refuse to kneel.
Not if I refuse to swallow scripture like it is the only thing
that will keep me alive.

And I
I am a ghost in my own home,
a question they do not want the answer to,
a wound they do not believe is bleeding.

God, tell me
if all their love belongs to You,
what is left for me?

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in the Banaag Diwa 2025: Nasaag Literary Folio of Atenews.