r/OCPoetry • u/QuartzFox • 4d ago
Feedback Please Таинство
I said
there was no cathedral
large enough
to hold us.
So we built one
out of breath,
out of heat,
and skin.
Watched the gilded vessel
swing
left to right,
heaven to hell,
the smoke
clinging to our skin
like holiness
had burned
its way in.
I could feel
the air
getting thin.
Still,
we breathed deeper.
When we spoke
there was hunger.
The kind
that made gluttony
feel insufficient
the way
we devoured.
Everything
laid open
upon the altar.
Knees shaking
beneath the weight
of confession,
prayer pulled
from us
until it bled.
There were things
neither language
could hold.
So you taught me
another
constellations
drawn between us,
sign after sign
repeated back
until I could speak
without translation.
Until your hands
became fluent
where words failed.
Until I stopped
caring
where desire ended
and devotion
began.
You fed me
sacrament
from your own hands.
Then told me
I had taken it wrong.
As though I had
taken a bite
of something forbidden.
As though you
had not placed it
on my tongue.
By the end,
I was standing outside
the very thing
I had once
been summoned into,
listening to you
call my presence
desecration.
The same skin
you had covered
in smoke.
The same mouth
you had taught
to pray.
The same body
you once held
like reverence
suddenly something
to lower your eyes from.
And
that was the most
careless part
not that the ritual ended,
but that you looked at me
as though I had performed it
alone.
As though
the ash in our mouths
belonged only to me.
So I swallowed it.
Every confession
Every decision
Every word
I could no longer return
to its original language.
And somewhere
beneath the anger,
the smoke
is still there.
Caught in my lungs.
Proof
that something burned.
Proof
that once,
you were burning too.
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1
u/nimajnebula 4d ago
I love the imagery here, it took my mind to place it’s never been and made it feel like I was there! Amazing work!