Sacraments
Rituals written in breath and skin.
Prayers that kneel inside hunger.
Gospel Of Teeth
They told me love is soft.
They lied.
Love is a mouth.
Love is a hunt.
Love is the sound bones make
when devotion bites too hard.
You looked at me
and I understood
why lambs don’t run.
Taming the Wild
Come here.
Closer.
Closer still,
until your breath frays against mine
like something breaking.
Don’t speak.
Let me taste your faith.
Salt.
Fear.
That thin, holy tremble
right before surrender.
Let me feel your heart
kick against my palm,
frenzied, stupid, animal,
throwing itself against bone
like it might escape.
It won’t.
Nothing ever does.
Feel it.
How it slams into my hand.
How it stutters
when my fingers curl tighter.
Your body knows me.
Even when you don’t.
Every beat
another confession.
Another door unlocking.
You can try to pull away.
Go on.
Watch how your pulse only climbs higher.
Watch how your ribs shake
like prey realizing
the trap already closed.
I don’t have to hold you.
You’re already here.
Already open.
Already offering yourself
without meaning to.
That’s what living things do
when something darker touches them.
They shake.
They pray.
They stay.
Feel how your heart keeps reaching for my hand?
Not escape.
Not really.
It’s knocking.
Asking to be let in.
Stay still.
Let it beat.
Let it break itself open for me.
You’re alive.
And that’s all I need.
Because living things
belong to whoever can make them tremble.
And right now,
you’re mine.
The Shape Along My Spine
I think I found God.
He was behind me.
Breathing like a curse,
whispering,
“Good girl.”
His shadow fit my spine,
a crown made of trembling.
My name turned soft in his mouth,
like a bell learning fear.
The room knelt with me,
and even the dust behaved.
The clock forgot its numbers,
the windows held their breath.
My pulse became a doorway
something larger leaned through.
I felt my ribs rehearse devotion,
my bones admit their smallness.
Even the light went careful,
as if it knew a secret name.
Obedient Blood
I said yes.
Every time.
But the part of me that speaks
has long stopped
meaning anything.
My consent wears borrowed clothes,
a mouth moving on a delay.
The mirror practices my face
while I stand somewhere behind it.
Silence learned my handwriting,
signed my name in obedient blood.
Some prayers arrive as bruises,
some as water I can’t refuse.
I have learned to nod like mercy,
to swallow the shape of thunder.
Even my shadow answers before I do,
and calls it loyalty instead of fear.
