The Altar

Sometimes the light feels borrowed-
Like stolen flames
From ancient gods
Who watch but never intervene,
Don’t stop the shadows in my thoughts.

Loneliness like incense curls,
A fog that wraps my bones,
It twists in quiet, patient swirls,
In places no one dares to own

No altar calls my name,
No prayer breaks through its
Hollowed space.
Just empty rooms
Of whispered air
And absence traced in lace

I tell myself the cracks have healed,
The surface sealed and still,
But restless lives beneath one sealed,
In silence sharp and shrill.

They think I’ve cast the blade aside,
They think I’ve learned to speak in light.
But still I keep the box I hide
Like relics tucked from moral sight,
A thorn behind the crown I wear,
A flask of oil I’ve never spilled,
My little altar of despair
In case the ache must be fulfilled.

I speak in parables, in prose,
But in the hollows of my vow,
Its sacred shadow still arose
A covenant I can’t revoke,
A quiet rite I dare not break-
The price I pay in bloodless smoke
When I pretend that I don’t ache.

The saints don’t see the wound I tend,
The gods don’t ask the curse I bear,
But I have seen the start, the end,
The sacrament, the hidden prayer.

So bless this mask,
And bless this lie,
And bless the days I seem complete-
But know, beneath the truth I cry,
Where gods and grief and rituals meet.

I will cry, make face,
And keep the blade just in case.
Not out of need.
But reverence
Like an old god
I no longer worship
But yearn to anger.