This is a new poem called “your god is a boning knife” about my time in the Mormon Church.

the god of your dreaming world is a boning knife
made to pry black from white
good from evil, the same from the other
the wheat from the chaff
you’ve made the sacred into a weapon, a tool
and reality into delusion

the god of your dreaming world is a crowbar
made to pry denial from the self
love from fear (to you, they are one and the
same)
blood from stones, beauty from ashes
until the souls you’ve carved in the name of
perfection, divine judgment, are not souls anymore
they are vessels for your unholy scripture
and their too perfect smiles don’t look
joyful to me anymore
they look like silent screams

the god of your dreaming world is a club
you use words to bludgeon when you can
no longer pry
slow violence and promises of an unsafe world
outside of these walls to
keep followers in line
you’ve made faith into such a violent thing
I never want to touch it again for fear of holding
the same weapons you used against me

the god of your dreaming world is a noose
and I am still suspended upside down by my
left ankle when I sleep sometimes all these years
later
as the blood rushes to my head I wonder what I
did to deserve this, how I fell for this
as I scream for someone to cut me down

I got out from under the shadow of your god
just barely
I am not perfect, I don’t want your vision
you will not pry anything else from me

-Peri 11/18/2025