A/N: I don’t mean to offend anyone here. I’m an atheist, so I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I wanted to try and see if I could, you know, put myself in the place of someone who’s never questioned their faith until their world came crashing down upon them…

It’s been so long, mon père, since I have been here. So long since I have said the things that need to be said. They rage inside me, secrets that are black and hot like fire, eating away at me. It is a wonder, even now, to me that they do not boil over, that my skin is not hot as metal, that I do not burn every flammable thing in my vicinity.

And yet outwards, have I changed, mon père? I feel so hypocritical, so deceitful as I walk down the street, my face a mask, my lips curled into a smile that none but I know is false. How can they not see the grief, the rage rampant in my heart, black and blazing in my eyes? He says my eyes have changed, he says they are darker, colder than they were before.

And Lance, he haunts me in my dreams, lurking, smoldering in my mind. When I close my eyes I can see him, etched onto my eyelids, lying white and gaunt on the hospital bed, Lance who overdosed on cocaine, Lance who is knocking persistently on death’s door. Something already has died in him, something I loved; something young, something innocent, something that had eyes the color of pine trees and emeralds and satin, something that smelled of lemons and grass and rain.

And am I self-absorbed, mon père, to think that it is my fault? Am I merely seeking to find something concrete in which to place this feeling of guilt, am I only trying to blame myself so I do not have to give my attention to others? So I have a reason for the hate burning in the pit of my stomach? The nosebleeds, his constant cold, his fainting spells, shouldn’t I have realized?

Shouldn’t we have all?

It’s not your fault, Justin murmurs in the dark of the night sometimes and I never know who he is talking to, himself or me? For surely guilt plagues him as it does me, he was closest to Lance in age, in any matter.

And is it anyone’s fault? Even Lance, can he be held responsible for his coma? And if he is responsible, aren’t those who first gave the drug to him? And isn’t, then, God responsible, for not stopping him, not intervening on his behalf?

I am losing my faith, mon père, for the first time in my life. Always God was there for me, always I could rely on Him, ask him a favor, offer him thanks, whisper a prayer for the needy and I was so content, happy in my belief of a higher power.

But now? Where is that higher power now, when I need Him most? Where is this God you preached of, prayed to, lived by? I keep talking but somehow I feel as if no one is listening anymore.

Last night, when fists flew and Chris was left with a split lip, Joey with a black eye, did I say anything? Did I tell them to stop; did I pull them away from each other? No, I sat, stared, and when Chris, wiping the blood from his lip, had looked at me, questioning my silence, I lowered my head- a silent conspirator, a voiceless voyeur.

Is this how it has always been, mon père? Did you, too, sit through such trials, mute, wordless, as much a part of everything going around if only because you were too afraid to do anything? Or am I alone in my cowardice?

You fought against so much, mon père, and so bravely; no one ever questioned your actions, your beliefs and you were such a kind man, with no prejudices, no inhibitions. You never advocated hate, you never encouraged lies and sin but forgave all those who trespassed into such domains. You sat behind the screen in the confessional, listening to petty declarations of sneaking a piece of chocolate when they had sworn not to, of stealing a coin or two from the tip jar, of copping a feel in an alley or a parked car.

Were you never afraid, mon père? Did you never lie awake at night, images flashing on your eyelids, did you never think you had made a mistake, did you never regret? Or was it all an act of your God, your brilliant God who does no wrong?

See how cynical real life has made me, mon père; see how I speak of Him with such scorn. Can He hear me? Will I be punished for such blasphemous thoughts? If my faith disappears, if my belief in God vanishes with the cold night, with the steady monotone of Lance’s heart, a long and bleak noise signifying the end of the only thing I truly loved, will I be chastised?

I don’t fear agony anymore, I don’t fear sin. Why should I? You were subject to transgression, you gave into temptation and still you were an ambassador of the heavens. You left cigarette burns sometimes on the pews and your breath was smoky, your lungs black. You bought chocolate during Lent, you ate meat on Sundays, you broke your fasts sometimes when you felt light-headed and empty.

But did you ever truly sin, mon père? Did you go to bed feeling dirty, guilty, hateful? Were you ever corrupt, dishonest? These questions plague my mind, they agitate me in the darkest night, pricking my mind like needles.

Did you look at a young man with lust burning in your eyes, as I have? Did you ever desire your closest friends, did you ever dream of running your hands over bodies firm and sculpted and masculine and wake up to find your sheets stained with your shame?

Are these feelings a sin, when Lance pressed a brotherly kiss against my cheek or Justin offered a fraternal embrace was it wrong to desire more? Is that why the doctors tell me that he has only a week if that, he is being punished for such thoughts?

You tell me, mon père. Am I a sinner, a Sodomite? A deviant? Will I burn in eternity for coveting someone of the same gender?

Will Lance burn in the afterlife that is not so distant from him for craving a white powder, for snorting something off a mirror or a tray, for trying to find something that takes away the pain of life?

And will you burn with us, mon père? Will you be right there beside us, flames licking at your skin for your lies? You lied, you said that if we believed, we spoke true to God, He would give us what we asked for if it was something true, something honest, something that was not material or was not laced with greed.

I only asked for love, I only asked for happiness. Was it too much, mon père? Was your God too busy to bother himself with saving a life, a life that I value even above my own? Was he too preoccupied with such crucial things as punishing a woman for breaking a diet or a young boy for feeling up his girlfriend in the backseat of his dad’s Mustang?

Is He just a lie, just a name to hide behind, just something to cover your wrongdoings, your deceptions, your crimes? A woman murders all five of her children and does not kill herself? It was God’s will. A twelve-year-old is pregnant with her father’s child? All part of God’s plan. A pop star dies of a cocaine overdose? He’s with God now.

We will burn, you and I, for our sins, for our indulgences. And God will burn with us, for his negligence.

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