Part V · Reclamation
False Prophet
You wore your cross like a crown,
but never carried it.
Just draped it over bruises you never earned—
the ones you claimed I gave you
when it was your hands,
your fists,
your silence sharpened to cut.
You cried on Sunday mornings
and cursed me Sunday night.
Told the church I was cold, controlling,
spiritually distant—
while I was nursing bite marks
and hiding ripped shirts from our children.
You performed holiness
with trembling lips and Scripture memorized—
a highlight reel of redemption
you never lived.
I begged you to stay in counseling.
You said God had already healed you.
I asked for honesty.
You quoted Paul.
Told me,
"A real man leads."
Then mocked me for being broken.
I told the group what happened—
how you'd hit me,
how you slapped our son across the face.
They asked what we did to deserve it.
It’s not abuse.
“She’s a godly woman,”
they said.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
And I felt the floor of my faith
crack beneath me.
Because what is God to a man
no one believes?
What is scripture
when it’s been weaponized
to justify the open wounds
you said were love?
You taught me how the Church
protects its daughters—
even the ones who kill from behind stained glass.
You were a false prophet.
Preaching from pulpits of pity,
twisting theology into alibis.
Crying to pastors while I sat in silence,
afraid to speak truth
in a room that only heard yours.
But God was never fooled.
Not the real one.
Not the quiet One I speak to now,
beneath blankets at 2 a.m.,
while the boys sleep soundly
for the first time in years.
That God doesn’t care about appearances.
He didn’t ask what I did to deserve it.
He didn’t tell me to go back.
He didn’t say
“forgive and forget.”
He wept.
He stayed.
And now,
I do too.
Still broken,
but no longer silent.