What Does Sin Look Like?

First of all I just want to say thank you so much to the NOH8 Campaign! The work you do is so inspiring and needed! I struggled for a long time with my sexuality because I grew up in a conservative, Christian environment, where I was told and believed that my sexuality would cause me to go to Hell. I did not understand because I tried desperately to get rid of my attractions to girls, but I realized eventually that is not the plan God had in mind. I struggled with depression and suicidal tendencies for years because of how hard I tried to change who I was. I wrote a poem to tell my story and how I feel about God, and those that use his name to spread hate.

I have attached my poem, and the picture you so graciously took of my girlfriend and myself.

- Ciarra

Call this a speech or call it a poem

Either way this is more than merely words

It’s an outpouring of my soul.

I’ve seen people whispering as they stare

I could read their lips as

They mouthed the word dyke.

Don’t cut your hair.

Honey, are you sure?

Oh, it’s a shame you’re really too pretty.

I can’t help but think

My future wife is going to disagree.

How hard is it to see that God created us

To live differently?

How boring the world would be

If everyone looked, walked, talked, thought, and acted like me!

Different doesn’t mean wrong,

And that’s not something

I learned while sitting

On a padded church bench.

People that “loved” me made me feel

As if I didn’t deserve the

Breath I was drawing in.

My existence to them screams

Nothing but sin.

Have faith.

Pray.

God can heal you.

My failure to change left me

Crippled with so much fear

That I almost didn’t live to

Write this poem.

My broken heart bleeding out

To some boy named Trevor.

I swore I knew what Jesus felt when

God turned away as he hung on the cross.

I welcomed Hell’s fire,

Desperately thinking that

They had to be warmer than anything

This life would allow me to feel.

I awoke the next morning

With warm sunshine instead

Of fire on my face

And more pills in my hand.

It was in that moment

I realized that God had a different plan.

My existence is not a sin,

But a representation of what he made perfectly.

I deserve to breathe, and I will spend

The rest of my life using every breath

To dispel hate spread in his name.

So now it is for you that I pray

Before you use the name of my God

To belittle and condemn other people like me

Look in the mirror and allow God to show you

What sin really looks like.