Growing up in an extremely religious family, the only escape I had, where my mother’s eyes didn’t pry, was under the stairs ‘club house.’ It was my only place where I could watch All American Rejects and Beyonce music videos on mtv, where I could make my Bratz dolls have sex, where I could burp and fart… It gave me access to a new world of fantasy, fiction, ‘inappropriateness’ and pop culture. A space where I had a say in who I was.

As a child I had visions, or daytime nightmares, of the rapture happening, and my family floated up to Heaven, and I, the sinner, stayed on Earth, or Hell, all alone. This altar space is a reclamation of why I couldn’t and with great shame, didn’t want to go to Heaven. For reasons I couldn’t shape with words I couldn’t comprehend. For reasons I know now. How religion pushes sexist, racist, classist, and homophobic doctrines. How each Holy book is soaked in blood. How it is a lever to control and conquer, fencing people into fear through brainwashing.

Almost twenty years later this quiet, dark, and cold public yet private space still draws me in. I write this, knelt down in front of my altar space, in the concrete alley behind my apartment leading to the dumpsters and laundry. I gaze at the angels tormented to choose between Heaven and Hell, above and below. A Holy Bible is embalmed and encased in cement moss and barb wire. I think about how Heaven was never an option for me. My cubby space was the only place where I felt peace with that.

This piece represents the few who are allowed access, and the many who are not, the Unholy, the tainted Sinners.

My people come from below.
My people won’t go to Heaven.

This is a reclamation of myself physically, my space spiritually, my mental autonomy, and lastly- my childhood religious abuse. An internal battle that has been waging inside of me since I can remember and this, now, represents a coming to a cease fire.

My altar is a space where nothing and everything is sacred.
A space to create, destroy, and manifest.
A space to pray…
Under the stairs.