the long decent
the slow unraveling of belief
It didn’t happen all at once. I think that’s what surprises people. The idea of a sudden fall, of a thunderclap moment where belief shatters—it's neat, cinematic. But the truth was quieter. There was no dramatic renunciation, no rage toward the heavens. Just a growing quiet. A slow loosening. Like water seeping through walls you didn’t know were cracked.
I used to believe. Not in a lukewarm way, but deeply. I prayed with my whole body, trusted with my whole heart. I believed I was seen. Known. Loved. And when that started to change, it scared me—but not enough to stop it. The shift was gentle, and then it wasn’t. Faith, I’ve learned, doesn’t always die in fire. Sometimes, it dies in fatigue.
There’s a version of me I can still see in my mind—kneeling, hopeful, open. That girl feels like both a stranger and a memory I ache for, even though I don’t want to go back. The truth is, faith fell from me easily. Too easily. And that’s what hurts the most.
the long decent
she was holy once. or maybe just hopeful. soft hands folded in prayer, a whisper on her lips, the kind of girl who knew the weight of mercy, who thought salvation was a road she would always find her way back to. but faith is a slow-burning candle, and one night, the wick burned out. it wasn’t a fall— not the way they preach it. no sudden lightning, no fire, no wrath. just the steady dimming of a soul too tired to keep pretending. just the quiet slipping of hands from the fingers of a god who never held on. she drifted. at first, she called it searching. then, she called it thinking. then, she stopped calling it anything at all. the hymns soured on her tongue. the prayers dried in her throat. the sky, once endless, folded into something smaller, something colder, something she did not recognize. was it doubt? was it sin? or was it just the way the world finally crept in like water through cracked stone, like rot beneath clean skin? she still remembers the girl she was— knees bent before the altar, palms open like she expected god himself to fill them. but the years are long and cruel, and the echoes of her own voice sound too much like ghosts. she does not pray now. she does not weep. she only walks, step by step, deeper into a place where the light does not follow, where grace is a language she no longer speaks, where the silence is louder than any answer she ever begged for. but the strangest thing is— she does not miss it. not really. not enough. and maybe that is the worst sin of all.
…
I don’t talk about this often. Not because I’m afraid of judgment, but because I’m afraid people will try to fix it. Try to hand me back the words I’ve already laid to rest. As if the loss of faith is just a phase, a detour, a bruise to be healed. But for me, it’s more like an amputation. Something removed with time, with pressure, with silence. And I’m still learning how to walk differently because of it.
I don’t miss the faith itself, not in the way people expect. I miss the feeling of being certain. Of being held by something invisible but sure. I miss the architecture of belief—the way it shaped my days, the way it gave language to pain. But I don’t want it back. That version of god didn’t hold me when I needed it. That version of faith didn’t make room for all the parts of me that hurt.
So I write instead. I walk instead. I carry my own silence, and it’s heavy, yes—but it’s mine.