I

I belong to no one else. I am my own— hardly, A blinking aggregate of macromolecules Staring down from the edge of a black hole That they tell me is eternity. The preacher told me he would pray for me; I don’t know what for. I am everything I could ever need; They fumble for something more. They are aligned in Archaic allegories, Paradoxical ceremonies. I sit at the edge of the deeply unknown And am not afraid to be my own. What do I believe in? Disbelief, The scientific method. Entropy, Explanations for the reverent. I am the prophet of my own dissenting, A martyr risen for reinventing. I am degenerate; a random genetic repetition. Yet both my fate and inhibition A sentient sieve's distinct nerve endings, A protagonist that chooses my own beginning. -- For the "Religious Poetry: Non-Christian" contest, Atheism