Your instinct to question was valid, same as your urge to hold disbeliefs close to your heart. Yes, the Catholic trappings intrigued you: scent of incense, Mass in Latin (a mystical sounding language), the idea of sacred rituals and mysteries, communal singing, the beauty of stained glass windows, and the priest’s vestments for different seasons, special feast days—red, green, gold, violet, purple, rose with ornate hand-stitched needlework on silk, damask, brocade.

When you reach adulthood, you’ll no longer stomach their rabid regard for guilt (except for their own), their patriarchy, their narrow views of sexuality, how they hide their history of abuse.

You will declare yourself no longer Catholic, no longer Christian, grateful to be free of any organized religion.  

You will celebrate
who you’ve become, what you term
a happy heathen.

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