Proud Supporter of Marriage Equality. Poem Dedicated to a Friend.

The Deviant (Edited)

by Anthony Labson

If God forgives killers, rapists,

and all forms of evil,

why is being what I am

a one way ticket to hell?

I have a common name

you would give to any other child.

Yet you look at me like my name should be

Hitler, Bundy, or Dahmer.

If God is my judge, jury, and executioner,

if his judgment is the only one that matters,

then who are you

to tell me where I’m going when I’m gone?

To say I will burn for eternity

in a constant lake of fire.

Compared to the pain I’ve suffered from you,

the lake of fire sounds like a blessing.

You say my culture is evil,

yet you’ve never experienced my culture.

You’re like a blind man,

speaking about violence in television.

Where do you get the nerve

to talk trash about the way that I live?

The way you talk trash about our culture

is like how a child doesn’t want to eat spinach.

Without even touching it,

you see something that looks disgusting.

Even though it can make you a strong person,

you still turn it away and you hate it

because of how it looks.

If Jesus says love your enemies as well as your friends,

then why do you harass me?

You insult me with words

and hit me with your fists.

Your souls must be dried up

because I’ve been surrounded by mountains of salt.

All because you don’t know me.

You only know that I love something you don’t.

I’ve done nothing wrong except being me,

And, what hurts the most is, you’ll never change.

You’re completely dead from head to toe.

You can make a quadriplegic feel grateful.

For that I will always pray and yet pity you

and this is the reason why.

You live by the book,

always fearful of the very word damnation.

But, in reality, you’ve hardly ever paid attention

to the simple meaning of life:

“To live and let live.”

You judge me because you want to be God yourself.

Who the hell are you to be telling me how to live

and how to act with my life when you’re as mortal as me?

Maybe it’s you that should be named Hitler.

You’re being more of a heretic

than I ever could be.

You hurt me with your words

because your being so devoted.

Have you’ve ever listened to the word?

Deaf men look at you and think God made you

as a joke to make them feel better.

You beat me with your fists

because you’re getting tired of beating your wife.

who only wishes that she could be just as happy as me.

Since she’s stayed with you so long,

this shows that she has bigger balls than you.

You can’t love me like other enemies

because I’m not your enemy.

I’m something you want to be:

a person.

So I will go on ignoring you.

What happens to me when I die

I will leave that up to God,

the creator of you and I.

(Excerpt from my book Madness in a Recession).