THE FAILURE OF THE FATHER GOD

They told me
God is a father.
So I paid attention.
I watched the fathers.
And I found Him in every slammed door,
in every clenched fist,
in every holy hush that said
“I only love you when she lets me.”

He was in the threat.
In the lesson.
In the scripture twisted like a belt.
In the silence after the storm.
He was the apology that never came,
and the punishment that did.

They said He loved me.
They said He made me.
They said to fear Him.
And so I did.
I feared the rage
behind the stained glass smiles.
I feared the sermons
that made excuses for abandonment.
I feared the men
who spoke on His behalf
with voices like verdicts
and hands like cages.

They said He moves in mysterious ways—
but there is nothing mysterious
about control.
About shame.
About daughters kneeling
in pews that never welcomed their truth.

If God is a father,
then He is the original absence.
The divine vanishing act.
The architect of abandonment.
The blueprint of every man
who loved with conditions
and ruled with silence.

I searched for Him
in prayers and pages,
in tears and tradition,
but all I found was
a mirror held up to my grief,
framed in gold,
signed in blood.

I do not believe
in a God who makes women smaller.
I do not believe
in salvation that demands
I forgive what nearly killed me.
I do not believe
in a Father who asks for worship
but gives no warmth.

If He exists—
He is not mine.
He is not mercy.
He is not love.

He is the myth that kept me quiet.
And I am done
singing hymns to my oppressor.

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