Possible Blasphemy

I am told by former christians that their God is dead. I am inclined to believe them. The God they worshiped before rejection; paper cuts on white-paged hymnals and kneeling before a Roman's instrument of torture and death. That God may very well be dead.

I am told by those who raised me that I am a sinner. I am inclined to believe them. I'm not exactly who he wanted me to be; Green hair dye on an unexfoliated scalp, my father's borrowed button-downs. My friend was once approached by a street preacher; she opened the bible he forced into their hands and bit fibrous paper, tearing from Zephaniah to Corinthians, looking as some ravenous animal might, ripping into the carcass of some long-dead creature.

I am told by devoted christians, in the name of conversion, that I am made in the image of their God. I am inclined to believe them. I have never seen war, but I have watched it unfold from afar, saying nothing. My youngest sister proclaims that good people are rewarded and bad punished once she hears the news of devastation, and still I say nothing. My favorite sweater belonged to my long-dead father, probably made by some refugee desperately surviving on fifteen cents an hour. But how am I meant to turn away an object whos praises to me are so soft, so warm, so comfortable and familiar?

God sits on a mountain somewhere and watches some queer, half-dead and surrounded, hanging from a tree in his name, but he says nothing. The praises his people give to him are beautiful, prayers so soft, blood and muscle so warm, devotion so comfortable and wars so familiar. So how is he meant to turn away his children?

I was told by a kindergarten classmate, named Charity, that I am going to her God's hell for being Jewish. I am inclined to believe her. A heaven embodied by an ungenerous six years old Charity, her nose and the tips of her fingers were always freezing pink. In the reality of a christian God, I'd rather spend my afterlife in the warmth and light of a hellflame.

I am told by my rabbi that he does not care whether I believe G-d is dead. That my religion is about tradition, carrying the mantel of generations of matriarchs and refugees so their preservation of my people will not be in vain. If my G-d is dead, I am thankful she did not take me down with her.