"Perhaps in time I will learn to forgive
myself for having to let him go like this."

(Taken from a hand-written letter written by my mother to her social worker shortly after my birth)

Mother, if absolution is your heartfelt need, then I swear you have it, now and ten thousand times, for no absolution need pass between our two tear-stained eyes.

Mother, if there should be those who seek forgiveness, then such a plea should come not from your bruised and bloodied lips, but from those who bruised and bloodied.

He who stood in pulpit high, yet raised by the hand of falsehood, and he who spoke in tones of divine hatred, words far from love, must kneel and fall before you, the 'fallen woman' and beg for your mercy. It is my prayer that you remain inclement, just as I, for unconditional forgiveness is only for the led.I pray also that you strike him full in his 'angelic' face with the force of the she-devil that in his eyes, sewn up with the rusty wire of dogma, you are.

They whose acidic tongues wagged in unsubtle ways in street,shop and tavern 'hospitable', I pray,strike them hard and with as little pity as their unfeeling eyes and mouths showed you in your hour of need.I pray, make them know the fear known by you and the anguish that gripped you as you held me in your loving arms before I was snatched away by 'faith' and hatred both.

He whose ears had to be stuffed with self-righteous wadding, that he hear not of your 'blasphemies', strike he, too, with the might of a madness that has doubtless caressed both our faces. Offer him, I pray, a vial of your menstrual libation and say; "This is my blood, drink and die a man condemned by your Ghost of Holiness, for merely ghostly is his 'truth'.