There’s a guy in my church who’s gotten serious about killing his desire for pornography.

After realizing that he has had a longer relationship with pornography than any girlfriend, he decided that he’d had enough. He was married to pornography and it was time to get a divorce. This isn’t a “struggle,” he’s not going to “work on it” or “try to get better.” He’s given her the divorce papers and the relationship is over, its final, and there’s no trial separation.

Men need to get radical with pornography and quit playing games. Jesus said if you eye causes you to sin, gouge it out! (Matthew 5:27-30)

I have gained his permission to reprint his poem, where he serves divorce papers to pornography and breaks free. The Divorce Papers was written by Patrick Harner.

The Divorce Papers

She’s been with me since before my brain
grew into a mature mass of configured nerve trees
that could separate the theo-
from the -ology,
and could see the dynamic features of my family
each individual a mess of undulating everchanging waves
sometimes crashing shores,
tsunami’s devouring fisherman and babies,
oceans sometimes the clear mirror
to children discovering 2/3s  of the earth in all its complexity,
but never the same.

Yes, she’s been with me since before that,
back before I played football
or discovered the joys of track and field
the exquisite feeling of lacing up a pair of spikes
and running as fast as you can
straight ahead, air and speed.
Like a field. Or a barn. Or looking at a tree.
Something you could do all day.

She’s been with me thirteen years longer than any girlfriend.
Longer than I played baseball. Longer than public school.
Longer than I’ve known my greatest friends from college.
It’s easy to love her. A slave master, who gives me exactly what I want every time.

My desire for mud pies
and not a holiday at the shore.
So this is my divorce paper,
that I’m laying down.
I’m sick of you mucking up my business.
I’ve had enough of your sabotaging.
Your destructing bulldozer ways through my relationships
with flesh and bone women.
I’m through with you oppressing me.
You’re a bad wife.

This is my divorce paper to my self.
I’m divorcing the old dead self,
the man that wants to be at the bottom
of some loud mouthed prostitute’s house
not smelling her well placed scents,
because he is dead.
Do away with her Jesus!
Do away with him Jesus!
Please, end this marriage.