To the Mormon Patriarchy:
I'm fine. I don't need an apology.
You can have those thirty years for free.
You can keep the chains you used on me
To maintain your crumbling dynasty.
I thought you were serious, that this was reality
When you told me I was powerless, but the joke was on me.
I believed you when you said you had special authority,
That God intended my mind to be your property.
But it was more like an amusing story:
Tricky, sneaky, slimy, funny to you but not me.
Your piety was nothing but formality
You never had to shrink yourself or lose your identity.
Never bore the weight of your mother's purity,
Or witnessed how her modesty bought her nothing but tragedy.
I cannot accept this was condoned by deity.
How has her obedience only elicited cruelty?
I speak for all the mothers and grandmothers in our genealogy —
What you call family history, I call death by proxy.
Young girls coerced into matrimony.
Black, brown, Indigenous—they’re all just a casualty.
You say you’re not a colonizer, just a missionary,
But my family’s generations consecrated their property
In order to worship white men who claimed they were holy.
It's fine. I'm over it already.
When our eyes meet, my gaze will be steady.
You'll know that I know your lies and duplicity.
What gave it away was your lack of morality,
How the safety of the innocent was never a priority.
But I still have many years to create a new reality—
My past is what made me, and for that I'm not sorry.
I'm venturing onward toward sunny days and tranquility.
I pledge to myself eternal fidelity.
I won't be there this Sunday to wallow in your fantasy.
I'm happily "unworthy" and every Sunday belongs to me.
Saying goodbye is merely a formality.
For those covenants and promises I bear no responsibility,
Oaths sworn under duress are empty and flimsy.
Children cannot consent to a contract for eternity.
From you I do not accept judgement or penalty.
Within my own soul I claim sanctuary.
Every day that you stole from me with your trickery
Is a day I reclaim to drink tea and write poetry.