I do love you, truly I do.

Before August ends and religion settles back into my bones as it always does, I want you to know that I love you. Despite the fact that I will hold hands with strangers on hard benches, whispering cruel curses as you walk down the aisle. Know I do love you, truly I do. You may be the only real love I will ever experience in this life, or the next, and for that I’m grateful.

However, family faiths die hard. Church communities gather around as rumours spread about you. How you cut your lovely long hair. I remember it well, how happy you were as I ran my fingers through it. Whispering how you are the most beautiful girl in the world. Now they whisper how it does not suit you, and I have to agree. You had a lot going for you: good luck, good looks, and stupidly studious, but you had to go and throw it all away for a life of sin.

Kissing girls behind the willow tree. Each kiss gets softer, which goes against everything I’ve experienced with a man. You wouldn’t know this, but they tend to get tougher, rougher, wanting more. You were so gentle with your love lingering on my lips for days after.

I do love you, truly I do, but I cannot stop being this clean Catholic girl, following in the footsteps of my sister, mother, and grandmother. It is because I love you that I curse you, for you made me feel things no moral, no creature of God, should ever feel.