Wrath & Reverb—Volume Up / Systems Down:
Judith by Tool
You were losing your faith.
Not in a blaze, but slowly—question by question.
You studied harder than they asked.
You read beyond the 20 safe scriptures.
And the deeper you read, the louder the questions got.
But questions weren’t welcome.
Especially not from people without a holy dick.
Apparently the divine couldn’t speak through the wrong flesh.
You could read better than half the men on stage—
but you were never going to face the audience.
Never going to lead.
Never going to be more than support staff for the men with god between their legs.
Everything was hateful.
Everything was negative.
Everything was bad.
Especially sex.
Especially women.
They never shut up about it.
It was constant.
An obsession.
You got kicked out young.
Came back later—
not for God,
but because the man who hit you convinced you it was Jehovah’s will.
“Stay. Forgive. Obey.”
And you did.
You made yourself small.
You begged.
You came back across the threshold like a leper asking to be let in.
And they treated you like one.
Like diseased mercy.
You wondered what Jesus supposedly said about lepers.
Because it sure as hell wasn’t what they were doing.
You got older.
You started seeing the patterns.
The gossip. The backstabbing. The smug cruelty masquerading as concern.
And then the outside world cracked the dome.
The working world.
People with no scripture, no shame, no obligation—
and they treated you better than the congregation ever did.
You started wondering:
I can live forever with people who hate me for being a woman… or I can live now with people who actually know how to love—and don’t have anyone to snitch to?
A real Sophie’s Choice.
Not.
You still couldn’t understand why God let that man touch you as a child.
Why didn’t He stop it?
Why didn’t He do what you would’ve done?
You’d rip someone’s dick off and shove it down their throat if you saw that.
But God? God did nothing.
God isn’t a woman. He’s a coward. Or He’s not there.
And if He is—fuck Him.
So you folded in.
Tried to make your way.
Faded—just enough to pass.
But not enough to disappear.
You were still on their radar.
You drift.
Stop feeling what you’re supposed to.
Mouth the words, but nothing stirs.
Keep showing up while the soul quietly exits.
There’s a word for that: PIMO.
Physically In, Mentally Out.
Sometimes you resign yourself to the punishment they promised.
“You’ll never see your family again.”
“You’ll die at Armageddon.”
“You’ll be alone.”
And for a while, you accept it like it’s fate.
Because they gave you no blueprint for joy outside their gates.
Because they taught you freedom was death.
And fear is a damn good leash.
Until one day—you don’t.
And that’s when the real exile begins.
And you’ll admit it:
You blew up your life.
And a couple other people’s, too.
You’re not proud of that.
You hate that it came to that.
But you were desperate.
And if there was still a narrow path back—
you wanted to take C4 to it.
Blow it sky high.
Salt the rubble.
Not because you thought you were brave.
But because you needed it gone.
You needed no return visit.
But even after you leave, you don’t feel free.
Because leaving doesn’t break the spell.
It just means the illusion no longer needs to hold.
You’re not being watched by God anymore.
But you still act like you are.
Like he might peek through the cracks to confirm your fall.
They didn’t teach you hellfire.
But you still learned to burn.
In silence.
In guilt.
In every moment something went wrong and you wondered if this was your punishment.
“This is what happens to apostates.”
Because they warned you so well.
So often.
So vividly.
That every danger they prophesied began to look like relief.
They didn’t tell you the worst pain would come from loneliness.
That they’d gut your ability to trust the world, then tear their world from under you.
That they’d turn your isolation into a self-fulfilling prophecy—
and when you spiraled, they’d hold it up like proof.
See, kids. She didn’t love God enough.
She wanted sin. Look where it got her.
So you drank.
You numbed.
You chased the things they warned you about not because they were forbidden—
but because they were the only things that didn’t sound like silence.
And when you hit the bottom, they nodded.
Smug.
Satisfied.
As if they hadn’t built the fall themselves.
You avoided public spaces, or went late at night.
Not because you feared confrontation—
but because you hated the look in their eyes.
Like they’d seen a demon in the flesh.
Like you were an omen confirming everything they warned each other about.
You weren’t their sin.
You were their mirror.
And they couldn’t stand the reflection.
Sometimes it felt like being Moses parting the Red Sea—
aisles opening wide in avoidance.
Other times, it was like flicking on the lights and watching cockroaches scatter.
And what burned the most wasn’t their faces.
It was your shame.
Rising. Immediate. Automatic.
Planted so deep, it bloomed without watering.
You hated that they still made you feel that.
That even outside the gates, they could still reach in and pull guilt out of your chest like a puppet string.
And maybe worst of all—
they taught you how to forget them.
To make them dead in your mind.
Because as long as you didn’t see them, they couldn’t exist.
As long as they stayed out of view, they were ghosts.
Gone.
Safer that way than seeing their backs.
They made that easier than it should’ve been.
People vanished with barely a word.
Just sad looks and whispers: “She had a double life.”
So you go quiet.
Not because you’re ashamed—
but because you’ve seen what they do with your name.
You build a life on the outside—but never fully of it.
You build walls.
Not because you’re cold.
But because now you know what it feels like to be stripped bare for someone else’s righteousness.
You build a fortress.
Not a cage.
Because this time, the rules are yours.
Because no one gets to tell your story but you.
And maybe you still feel guilt.
Still feel the flinch.
Still dodge the words that once curled around your throat like commandments.
But you’re not lost.
You’re not broken.
You’re just free enough now to choose:
Who you are.
In silence.
Before they try to name it for you again.
And maybe this fortress isn’t just a shelter.
Maybe one day it becomes something else.
A flare.
A warning.
A weapon.
But not yet.
First, you had to survive.