Naivety, and Other Forms of Devotion
Satan
When I was small, I used to hide behind the curtains
and pray for the one who had been cast away.
Not because I understood him,
but because no one else wept.
They said he refused to bow,
but never said if he cried.
They spoke of fire,
but not of longing.
He was made of flame,
but no one asked
if he ever ached for light.
And I, too young to know sin,
too soft to carry fear,
folded my hands in the quiet
and asked God to forgive him.
I thought, if even he could be held again,
perhaps the world would stop aching.
Perhaps the nights would hurt less.
Perhaps I would stop imagining myself
in the place they said he went.
I whispered it
so gently
it felt like hiding a bird in my throat,
fragile, trembling,
but still alive.
I believed that if my voice
stayed small enough,
God wouldn’t be angry.
That if I sent it upward in silence,
it might pass through the heavens
and the earth
without being stopped.
To this day,
I don’t know if it was mercy
or loneliness
that led me.
Only that I prayed for the one no one wept for,
before my mother could find me,
as if some part of me already knew
what it meant
to be sent away.
To Orpheus, If He Still Sings
I built a temple
in my throat
for the note
that was never struck.
I have waited in the quiet
long enough to forget
how my own voice sounds
when it’s not aching,
But hey,
still I believe
in the myth of one
whose breath might undo
the death I have grown fond of.
They warned me
of men who sing backwards,
of those who walk toward ruin
as if it were home.
Still, I waited…
spine to the wind,
mouth full of unasked prayers.
You passed me once
beneath the cypress,
your gaze still bleeding
with someone else’s ghost.
But I bowed
I always bow
for gods with broken hands.
There are nights I wear silence
like crushed pearls on my skin
too quiet to weep,
too late to beseech.
And I dance, Orpheus.
I dance
until the floor forgets my name.
Do not come now.
The lyre is ash.
The veil is stitched to my breath.
If you turn again,
turn all the way,
and let me be
your second Eurydice.
