the girl I love smells like gardenias and freedom,

they couldn’t silence her soul if they tried.

when she kissed my cheek it felt like salvation,

like the first time I wasn’t living a lie.

my tear choked prayers taste like damnation,

the pastor says we’re not seeing heaven.

he called it ‘a wonderful life at a terrible price’, 

but momma said love’s not a deadly seven. 

the girl I love knows no sin but this, 

wrath cowers in her path.

her greatest crime, a stolen kiss,

while my pastor deals in lies.

he lusts like any other

but he eyes my married mother,

while pride that rivals those in hell

in his smug, self righteous thunder.

this sanctimonious sinner

with his finger on the trigger,

says love’s unforgivable but a closet is livable, 

we won’t die by a hypocrite’s sword.

the girl I love won’t be broken on the altar

in tortured marriages choked on cherry picked verses,

watching kids like us die over mistranslated sources.

salvation only ever looked like her

so we’re worth more than bullet holes.

the smoking gun in righteous hands,

I won’t die by your perceived command.

the girl I love smells like gardenias and a future,

like sunkissed valleys and after sixteen.

like see you tomorrows and happy ever afters

or Sundays that won’t rot unclean.

it was never obscene, that it wasn’t a man,

worse that you saw me a sacrificial lamb,

forever damned for who I am

but you couldn’t silence my soul when you tried.