21 Letters – #5 For Daniel
You wore the collar of reverence,
sat polished in the pews,
rosary clutched tight like a weapon,
mouth full of prayers that smelled of incense and ash.
They called you holy,
Deacon,
man of God.
But your hands told a different story.
I never felt safe in your shadow.
Your presence was a stone in my throat,
your voice a sharp hiss
that stripped the air of kindness.
You thundered about sin and penance,
about purity and devotion
but the confessional you built in our family’s bones
was one no priest could ever absolve.
After your death,
truth peeled back the gilded paint:
what you did to the lambs within your fold,
those who carried your blood,
sacraments desecrated,
innocence crucified
on the altar of your hunger.
The body of Christ on your tongue,
while theirs was carved into silence.
And I am angry -
angry that they carried shame
that was never theirs to hold,
angry that the pain carved into their lives
came not from strangers
but from the man who should have been
their shield.
Father.
Protector.
Instead, you were the wolf
who dressed himself in vestments.
Now every time the church bells toll,
I hear chains.
Every time someone in the parish
praises your “service”
or calls you “a good man,”
my mouth fills with vinegar.
I want to spit it out at their feet,
to shout Sanctus? No... blasphemous.
The stained glass may still hold your likeness,
but I see the cracks,
the blood that was never yours to shed.
You will never be “grandfather.”
You forfeited that name.
You earned only silence,
a legacy of rot
disguised as reverence.
And I write to you now,
not for forgiveness
but to strip away the mask
you wore so well.
May the God you pretended to serve
look you in the eye,
and may the prayers you recited
turn back into dust in your mouth.