If you wonder why we never talk anymore,

That horrible old church is why.

We knew better, read more, loved with all our hearts and swore our oaths to do better, be better.

Be more than inheritors of old bigotries.

Be more than another rotation through the cycle of abuse.

Be more than the small minded, racist slave driving theology we were taught to obey.

We knew better.

But somehow she made you forget that.

"They aren't all like that Ben, it's different now."

Tell it to your dead brother.

Tell it to our broken families, judged as sinful, lesser things for our parents divorces.

Tell it to your poor daughters, as they grow up destitute second class citizens to the rich blonde haired blue eyed Hitler youth wet dream that runs that church, like we were.

Tell it to your poor daughters when they are social pariahs because their religion won't let them own electronics necessary to their education, or does the church now distinguish between pornography and general computer use?

But don't tell it to me.

You give money to the man who says that the years long sexual exploitation and abuse of children is forgivable, and divorce deserves condemnation.

If you wonder why we don't talk.

You are why.

I don't know you.

I knew a young man who believed in better.

He's dead.