ᴏᴜᴛᴇʀ ʙᴀɴᴋs ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇs

john b - sinner

inspired by the song sinner, by phora.

When I speak it's like ya'll don't hear
Why I feel like God don't care
Why I feel like I ain't good as no one else
I'm searching but my pride ain't there

I sat on my roof, looking out at the world around me. It was a beautiful place, it really was.
Growing up, I saw the differences between the houses and I had wondered why I couldn't live in a fancy house like Sarah Cameron (for example). I wondered why some people were struggling to find food, while others were able to swim around in a pool and drink fancy, expensive wine.
At first, I thought to myself that I wasn't as good as others and that's why I didn't get to live the life that they did.
I thought like that for years, watching my mother and father struggle to provide for my brother and me, but then I found god. My parents were extremely religious but didn't push it on us kids.

I think that maybe life was getting so bad, I just needed something to believe In and that ended up being God. I stopped worrying about the differences in quality of life, and I started worrying more about how to become a better me. How could I better myself? How could I prove to God that I was worthy of his love?
I prayed on some nights, I prayed that one day we would get to live in a word that was peaceful.
I prayed that one day all lives would be equal in the eyes of God and everyone else.

But I was a kid then, I was young and dumb. Now I had grown up, and I had realised that it was never going to happen. Not to that extent, not while I was alive anyway.
I tried to take pride in everything I did, I tried to find a way to wake up every day and find something to be happy about.
I found that happiness, that peace of mind and that love when I met John b. I had a reason to wake up every day.

We were from the same world, me and him but we found a sense of peace within each other and that was all I needed. He was the light, that thing that kept me going when I didn't want to anymore. He was the one I could turn to for anything, my best friend. My boyfriend, the joy.
If he was my happiness, what else did I need?

I just feel like life ain't fair
My boy got shot, died right there
But me, I died twice and came back to life
So tell me how can I be scared

And then it happened. It was night; two months ago. I had been out with John b and the rest of the pogues and when I walked into my house there was blood everywhere. As much as I've tried to forget that day, I don't think I will ever be able to.
My brother was on the floor, dead. Murdered in cold blood, in his own home. Our house was supposed to be a safe haven from the ugly world outside but no, God couldn't even protect us inside our houses and if he couldn't do that, was he even real?

My beliefs went out the window the moment I saw the bullet holes in my brothers head. In a way, my beliefs were me. My beliefs had made me who I was, so who was I now that God wasn't a part of my life anymore?
At the exact moment, I found him, I knew that this world was uglier than even I had thought. Yes, it had some beautiful qualities but the bad truly did outweigh the good.

I was scared but I felt guilty because of it, how did my brother feel in the moments before his death?
After that day, I had no idea how to go about life anymore. Like, how was I suppose to live now?
People were constantly looking at me with guilt in theirs, with sympathy and I hated it. I was known as the girl whose brother was killed.
And it was unsolved, an unsolved murder in Kildare.
It was supposed to be a relatively safe place. It was supposed to be a place where people didn't have to live in fear but now they did.
I had so many questions but not enough answers.
How does someone move past grief?

Why do I gotta doubt myself
All I ever do is doubt myself
Drink liquor till the head gets consumed by the pint, like
I don't care about my health