THE GOD
OF
HUMAN SOCIETIES
ABUSE, ASSAULT, AND RAPE ARE THE FRUITS OF LUST. WE MUST ADMIT WE’VE PLANTED ALL THOSE TREES OURSELVES. WE THOUGHT WE COULD CONTROL AND CONTAIN IT IN OUR ORCHARDS, BUT IT GROWS LIKE WEEDS AND DEVOURS ALL THE LAND. B Y J O N N Y G O R A S H
It’s a venom that turns your blood to stone, hardens the heart and brittles the bones. It’ll make a ghost out of you, drifting through the ruins of bodies, minds, and relationships. It’s the enemy of loyalty, colonies eating through the insides of the falling forest of devotion. It’s the god of human societies, bodies of tendon and marrow sold and traded to hungry eyes and hands. It’s always too much and never enough—a mirage, a drug. It’s like drowning in a puddle; you thought it couldn’t kill you, but you can’t lift your head anymore. It’s water on a grease fire—watch it burn the things you said you loved. We can’t hold love in the hands of lust—we’re clenching coal, hoping it’ll turn to diamonds. In a selflove world, who can we trust? I’ll love me first and hand you the dust. Whatever happened to sacrifice? This is lust and it’s never innocent—never brief enough. Will we let it take us under? Will we give our minds over to our bodies and let our skulls be the ceilings of our thoughts—our ribs the walls of our hearts? How long will we sell sex? As long as sex sells? Welcome to the sexual revolution; the trading of rationale for instinct in the name of liberation—we are only animals, so act like it. This is not okay. There’s a truth beyond what your mind can create. We are souls in need of love and purpose, not just flesh to be exploited. Sex is not love, but it must be loving—sacrificial, devoted, and selfless. Abuse, assault, and rape are the fruits of lust. We must admit we’ve planted all those trees ourselves. We thought we could control and contain it in our orchards, but it grows like weeds and devours all the land. Now we’re covered in this bitter, rotten fruit, shocked by what we have become. Tear these trees out of your life and set fire to the orchards you’ve desperately tried to fence. Pull the roots from this crusted land—flee lust and run. Run home; he’s waiting for you. Our Father sits through every cold night on the front steps with a lantern in his hand. If you cannot run or don’t remember the way, cry out from deep within your soul; he’ll carry you home. He hasn’t forgotten you—he never will.