Who Taught You?

Who taught you
That the essence of love
Was found in faking a smile, and feigning a laugh?
Pretending that lemon's sweetness had touched your lips?

Who taught you
That kindness was in lying to your fellow man,
Of pretending to be happy
When you are sad,
Or at peace
When bathing in turmoil,
Or joyful
While you are fighting back the tears?

Who taught you
That God was someone you could talk to?
That angels and demons care of what fruit you choose to eat,
Or what leaf you hide yourself behind,
Or what altar you'd bend your knee before?

Who taught you
That heaven was some place you went?
That you had to die, not live, to get there,
That you needed to sing the praises of some other man's fantasy
As a price of admission?

Who taught you this?

And why did you choose to listen?

Who taught you that you were not good enough?
That the beauty within you was not beautiful to see,
That the fire within you was not enough to light your way,
That the song you danced to was not a song at all?

Who taught you that your smile was not as powerful as the Sunrise?
That your touch was not uplifting,
That your whispers could not send the chills
I now feel running up my spine?

Who taught you that your pleasure was a sin?
That your screams of ecstasy are best kept hidden in the shadows,
That your open displays of love are things best kept secret,
That you are not the one to be free?

Who are these bastards, and how can I meet them?
I want to show them what I see...
The beauty, the strength, 
The Heaven that is you.

I want to know the ones who taught you
Not to believe in what you knew,
To silence the voice within that shouted out your name
Even before you knew a single word.

I want to see those who have such a power over you,
Who can make a river flow uphill.
For they are truly gods among us.
Must we forsake ourselves to be
More
Like
Them?

And you've chosen their hymn,
Without even realizing it.
You've ceded your power, 
With barely a whimper in the cause.

Why do you choose to learn the book
That has never worked for them?
Surely the purpose of such a faith
Is to not need the faith at all...

"Surely the purpose of such a faith
Is to not need the faith at all..."
Let that settle for a moment.
And a moment more.

Surely the purpose of your crutch
Is to help your wounded limb heal.
Not to hold onto
Once you are mended.

Or not, it seems,
We're stuck in some unholy matrimony
Where ideas struck by other men
Mean more than the footprints we can press ourselves into wetted sands.

Who taught you that you're a sinner?
Some heathen prank of a lowly god
Who needs you to bend your knee at some ornate altar
He was surely born upon?

Who taught you that you weren't enough
That something out there would make you more,
Would give you more
Would hold a torch while your cried loudly in the darkness?

Who handed you that crutch on which you lean?
The very tool that keeps you from walking on your own?
And why? 
That's where the weakness begins.

I say goodbye to their thoughts
And hello to my own experiences
May I never need your crutch again.
May my healed wings now take to flight.

I've never seen a thing in nature
Bow before a cross
Or kneel before an altar
Or seek refuge in a church.

I've never seen a fowl or fish or beast
Read a book to teach them what they know
Or need the words of others
To be
A fowl
or fish
or beast.

I've never seen a tree
Change itself to lumber
And I've never seen a flower
Seek to bloom to your perfection.

So, who taught you that you weren't as perfect as a rose?
That you were wrong the moment you were born?
What evil lurked within the mind
Of those who judged you even before you knew your name?

I guess if you thought you were good enough,
Or happy enough,
Or could fulfill your wildest dreams,
You would not need their silly book,
Or silly building,
Or silly notion of what is right for you.

If you could be free,
That would mean they could be free too,
And freedom scares those who cannot own their place in hell
Or heaven, or in the spaces they find between.

The spaces they create
In order to blame an Other, or give thanks to an Other
That same creation
Taken from another man's design.

Breath...

Deep breath...

Release...

Hated is the one who has been freed.
Feared is the one who slips the rusted shackles of collective thought.
He spreads his arms to feel the pinch of steel and wood,
In order to truly free.