Presents Of Deception Poem by Amouta Stardancer

I laid the cross,
down long ago,
but the words ran,
when I tried,
to let them know.
I passed over,
the Catholic way,
and dropped,
the ancestral cross,
when it was put to me.
I am done,
but yet,
confirmed, and renewed,
through empty ceremony,
into this faith,
I do not believe.
Empty 'I do's,
spoken among,
the crowd of other,
red-robed figures.
'Congratulations',
'Welcome! ',
they didn't know,
the charade,
and the words,
I so wanted to say,
instead of 'yes' and 'I do' that day.
The unsaid,
hung over the gifts,
family brought.
My Great Grandmother's cross,
old and golden,
was placed over,
my head and done up hair,
and I had to wonder,
was this what was supposed to be there?
Doves and crosses,
laid over the gifts,
useless to me,
if only they knew,
what symbols there should be.
On the christian trinkets,
I knew must have,
cost them so much,
guilt hung like a shadow.
All would likely,
find a black box,
in the back of an attic,
somewhere labelled,
'christianity'.
But it would,
so hurt my family to hear it,
that I left Jesus,
for Athena,
and my path had,
so far strayed.
Better they prayed,
and blessed,
and gave,
than have them suffer,
worries over me.
But still,
in the black box,
in the back of,
an old witch's attic,
a peculiar thing,
to find...
A cross,
old and golden,
set aside.
Perhaps for a descendant,
to pick up,
for a christian life,
until then locked away,
in the dark guilt of a convert's shadow.