I remember walking out of that Sunday school class, seething, wearing my indignation like a badge of honor. Nobody noticed, but it didn’t matter. I had declared my rebellion. I knew that they were wrong and I was right; in fact I was as certain of it as I ever had been certain of the existence of the being we were there to worship. I had exchanged one blind faith for another, but, being blind, I did not know it.

“I really just don’t think those people know what love is,” they said.

And I was young and full of fire. Everything was waking up new. My first kiss still lingered on my lips, not yet even a month old, still tingling in every vein. I wanted to stand and scream at them in a tongue of my own invention. I wanted to cut my palms and let them watch me bleed. Don’t know what love is? Fuck. You.

But one day (today) I woke up and didn’t recognize the aging face in the mirror and felt sick and felt empty inside and felt a chill seize my spine as I thought, “My god, my god, what if they were right?”