The Altar of Your Absence
I built a temple for you
out of hours I could not afford.
Every prayer
was the shape of your name,
every offering
the sacrifice of my sleep, my breath, my will.
Devotion, I learned,
is a double-edged worship.
It is holy, yes-
but it is also hunger.
And hunger, when unanswered,
becomes desperation.
I waited at the altar
long after the candles died,
knees aching,
heart splintering.
Your silence grew taller than cathedrals,
yet I still bent my head to it
as if silence were proof
you were listening.
What kind of faith is this,
to kneel before someone
who does not even notice
the blood at my feet?
To believe in salvation
from hands that never reach back?
Still, I remained.
Because love, in its rawest form,
is not gentle.
It is a tether that bruises the skin,
a chain dressed as devotion,
a prayer whispered into nothing
with the desperate hope
that nothing will answer.
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