I have discovered a definable crack that weaves its way through

I have discovered a definable crack
that weaves its way through the compasses of both our
subjective moralities,
I have been tracing it
over the years, trying to discover
where our divinities started to diverge
and I’ve discovered that there is a difference
in our most beloved of definitions.

You see,
The difference between your redemption and
mine
is that mine was gutted and earned
Mine was dragged from the shivering depths
that you won’t visit
Out of fear of what those depths will illicit
and mine is pure
As the sun that keeps on rising through the
shadowy badlands of my heart.

The difference between your strength and
mine is that yours is contingent on a power that you do not possess,
Mine is woven through my chest,
Mine can’t be stripped or denied or laid down to die because I built
it with my own two calloused hands,
with a bold faith in the strength beneath my skin.

The difference between your paradise and mine is that mine cannot
be lost,
No matter how many serpents slither in, no matter how many sins
cake my skin,
No matter how many floods and plagues and betrayals come to
threaten this
Utopia of peace
that I’ve constructed in my mind.

The difference between your virtue and mine is that I’d eat that
apple, every damn time
If it was the only way for me to get to you.

I’d be thrown out of that garden, I’d swallow the poison of pride, I’d
risk the sins of all of mankind
To bask in the simple sin of loving you, time after time after time.

The difference between your purity and my pleasure is that the
badlands always suited me better and your
Eden
was not my kind of paradise at all.

—Heidi Priebe, Eden Was Not My Kind of Paradise