If This Be Sin

If the One above is said to be ever-loving, how then does He condemn His own creation for no crime but only being as they are?

I have sought forgiveness long before I could even keep count. Streaks of tears dried with each whispered prayer, as though guilt could unlearn what the heart desires. I was even taught to quell the softness that came so innately within, to deepen my voice like a real man, to loathe the boy who wore his heart openly. With every second I spend among the righteous, I bleed beside the crucified man, as they dug for demons beneath my skin to purify my soul. For a time, I believed I had strayed beyond salvation, that to embrace homosexuality was to surrender myself unto darkness. Yet if being myself is enough to name me a sinner, then I shall no longer fear the horns they place upon my head. And if loving the one my heart desires is the gravest sin I shall ever commit, then cast my soul unto fire, and let it be–

So that when I stand before the final judgment, my face may yet carry the pride of knowing that I lived not in fear, but simply as the man I was created to be. And if sinners bear no place within the promised land, then may the flames below prove gentler than the cruelty committed in the name of thy beloved God.