Lo, I wear my faith upon my chest. 

For it is a shield against the world, 

Protecting me from being seen for what I am. 

It serves to hide my true nature, 

A blinding red herring, a steel man fallacy, unquestionable, 

Covering the darkness of my psyche. 

I do not commit to true service, give my life, 

For it is my personal victim’s ploy.

I preach in public, casting myself as holy, 

When those of true piety would call it hypocrisy. 

I hide behind the cross, so I am not seen, 

The ugliness I secrete in infantile sham, 

For I am stunted, egotistical, slightly inbred, 

A forever child with no identity away from mother. 

And I use my faith to manipulate, 

To get what I want, playing the sympathetic ear, 

The all-weather friend, the anodyne lover. 

But I could be all those things without the show. 

It is the show that matters, the show that keeps my perversion safe, 

For without it I would only be the lying brute I am. 

It is my forever excuse, 

And the more I cling to it, shove it in your face …

The more you can be assured that it is an act, 

A guise, a ruse to hide the darkness within me. 

Yet you fall for it, accept the obligation faith demands, 

And you give me succor, as I begin to consume your soul.