So Much of Your Life is a Lie

So much of your life is a lie. Not even God knows the depths of your deceit.You take a deep breath and feel a sharp pain in your right rib just as the pastor yells at the congregation to shout hallelujah. You try to join in but you can't. You can't speak because you remember the touch of your friend Naza, you remember that the touch wasn't just a friendly one. It was something you knew you were meant to call wrong.The pastor is still preaching. Your eyes are wide open but you are at the back of the class with Naza, her fingers trailing your inner thigh, your hands on her waist, and she looks into your eyes and —Praise the living Jesus.Hallelujah, replies the congregation.And suddenly you are back. Back in your too-tight dress, cosplaying a godly Christian girl. You feel no guilt. You couldn't care less about the church. After the service you sit silently while the youths hate on the LGBTQIA+ community during their monthly meeting, because no self-respecting woman would ever stand up for them. And that is when the weight settles on your chest. You want to speak. You want to tell them to leave gay people out of their mouths, to stand up for the community, to be brave just this once —But you still live with your parents. And you would rather have a roof over your head.So you smile. You fold your hands. You perform.At home, your parents congratulate you for leading the morning devotion so well and you smile. Who will tell them that you think God is a selfish egomaniac.You pretend you love Jesus. You pretend you love to read your Bible. You have even memorised Bible verses, not because the word of God moves you, but because you cannot afford to slip.You are asked to lead prayers in church and you do it with your whole chest, eyes closed, voice steady, while somewhere in the back of your mind you are thinking about how psychotic it is, talking to sky daddy.The performance is so complete that sometimes you forget where it ends and you begin.Sometimes you break out of it, just slightly, just enough. You mention, casually, that you don't think you want to get married. The air in the room changes. The look you get is so loaded, so heavy with everything they will not say, that you laugh it off before they can speak. Just joking. Obviously I want a husband.So much of your life is a lie.And the worst part? You are very, very good at it.If you are reading this and your chest is tight, if you laughed a little too hard at the joke that wasn't a joke... I am not talking about her anymore.You know exactly who you are.You know exactly what you perform.And you are so tired.And then there is the happiness.You perform that too.You laugh at the right moments. You smile with your whole face because a half smile invites questions. You post the pictures — church fits, family dinners, another Sunday well spent — and watch the likes roll in for a person you are not sure exists anymore.The guilt is not dramatic. It does not announce itself. It sits on your sternum like something you swallowed wrong and never quite dislodged. The guilt of the double life is not about God or sin or any of the things they would say it is about. It is about the energy. The relentlessness of it. The fact that there is no room, no corner, no hour of the day that is simply, quietly yours.You are so tired of being the daughter they think they have.You have wondered, in the dark, whether it would be easier to simply stop. Not the performance, but You. Whether the world would grieve the real you or just the cosplay. Whether anyone has ever even met the real you long enough to miss her.But you are still here.Still smiling.Still performing.And somewhere underneath all of it — underneath the Bible verses and the hallelujahs and the laughing off of jokes that were never jokes — she is still here too. The real one. Waiting.So much of your life is a lie.But you are not the lie.

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