I'd like to preface this "free-verse" poem by stating that this may or may not depict my actual opinions/beliefs, regardless, read with an open mind and point of view.

They say, "God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers."

They say, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."

Then tell me why the 12-year old girl with a face that used to radiate joy and light up at the sound of her daddies voice,

now curls up in the corner behind the couch when he comes home,

because she can't stand the sound of a man’s voice?

Why, you ask?

She was raped last week by a man that she trusted to protect her.

God, please explain to her that she can handle it..

Please tell her why, despite her whispered prayers to you, as her attacker came closer and closer,

why you were not there to answer.

Tell me what the young girl at only 18,

with the sparkle in her eyes, and spirit it in her step, only 3 days away from graduating,

did to be standing on the corner waiting for her little brother to get out of school,

only to be dragged down the road under the wheel of a driver,

with cloudy eyes, and whiskey on his breath,

right in front of her little brothers eyes?

..not three, not two, but just on step away from the safety her own car.

God, please tell your son as his back pack falls to the ground,

as his entire world crumbles down,

as he sprints to his sisters mangled body,

screaming at her to wake up,

that everything happens for a reason.

Tell him she is in a better place.

Listen to him plead for her life back, telling you that the "better place" for his big sister is in the room down the hall..and at the dinner table with his family.

Listen to him cry to you.

They say, "Homosexuality is a sin."

That if you "choose" to be gay,

it's a sentence straight to hell.

So tell me what the 15-year old boy that lives with his grandmother,

and makes her dinner every night,

feeding it to her at her bedside,

did to deserve the bloody nose and broken ribs he got earlier that day in school,

for speaking up when he was called a "faggot."

When he prays to you at night, clutching to his bed post, to "fix" him and make it stop,

tell him that he is the reason for his own pain.

Tell him he is getting exactly what he deserves.

Tell him he is a sinner.

Tell me, if God loves all his children, why are some excluded?

Tell me what a pair of loving parents did.. Where did they go wrong,

in raising their daughter?

Loving and accepting her when she brought her first girlfriend home,

teaching her that love has no gender..

Tell me where they went wrong.

Tell me what they did to come home from a long day at work,

and find their beautiful daughter hanging in the closet..

Tell me why at her funeral, there were people with such hate in their eyes,

holding signs, “No Tears For Queers”,

as a father and a mother stood over their daughter,

buried in the ground.

Tell them that their beautiful baby girl is going straight to hell.

Tell her girlfriend, as she falls to the ground weeping, that her love was wrong anyway.

Tell me that God is our protector, and our Father.

Tell me God only does good.

Tell me that he is always watching.

Tell me that he doesn't give out what you can't handle.

And I will tell you, you may be wrong.