"For the Love of God" by Caitie (Caid) L. Young

once i prayed God, destroy everything that attempts to break us apart. i knew the way His people saw me, their eyes pleading for my decay; a girl once begged me to tell her she was good and i believed i had to lie to be honest; i wanted to be good, i wanted to swallow the love that flooded my mouth when i bit my lip the girl watches me now as i offer my fruit straight from the vine, she looks closely when my lips split and out of it comes a flood of my own ending, my own envy. i sleep in the same bed as God, i pray destroy everything that attempts to break me, and when i look down at my becoming, i leave myself to the past where a girl once begged me to tell her she was good, and i know she would have swallowed an anchor had i said it would keep her feet planted in solid ground, so i told her she was evil and i was evil too; i showed her how to murder her mind and teach her lies into secrets, together we learned how to cover ourselves in the blood of Christ, how to keep inside so no one knows the shapes we make in the dark

Caitie (Caid) L. Young(they/them) is a poet and essayist from Northeast Ohio, where they earned their MFA in Creative Writing from Kent State University and the NEOMFA Program. Their work has appeared in Puerto Del Sol, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. Their work has recently earned a Best of the Net nomination, they were the first-place recipient of the 2022 Foothill Editors Prize for best graduate student poetry, and they are a pushcart nominee.