There are nights the body remembers before the mind ever catches up.
Nights where the ribs hold their breath first,
as if they already know what’s coming.
This is one of those nights.
Through the cracks in my own marrow, I learned prayers were never coming to save me.
I learned that if I pressed down hard enough,
angels could look like
kisses sharp enough
to take my mind off how lunar bows bring blood.
In the sunrise, dried roses try to rise again —
light always asking too much
of a heart afraid to hope.
Yet in the courage of a bottle of acetaminophen,
a daydream becomes a resuscitation.
A pulse choosing itself one more time.
A little girl sits in the pews of my heartbeat
while demons bid her
to nail herself glowing
with the light left after rain,
crowned in the petals
of golden-hour’s promises.
A shard of memory can turn a wrist into a rainbow,
the same way a falling tear buries us in
“if only I had just…”
A prayer ignored by our own selves is never answered in heaven.”
And maybe that was the first truth that hurt enough
to make room for healing.
Judgement finds us in the way cracked teeth
eat away at the joy we open ourselves to be burned in.
Holding her breath underwater,
she baptized herself in her own name,
wondering if the monsters
would use her temple
better than she ever learned to save it.