some nights i kneel not in prayer but in ache 
and tell the ache it is sacred. i say: here, 
let me offer you this silence, 
let me light my chest on fire and call it a vigil.

i love you like the old saints loved their suffering— 
with a kind of vicious joy. with hunger 
that refuses to starve. 

i don’t know god 
but i know how your name feels 
when whispered in the dark— 
like confession, like wine, like the first honest thing 
i’ve said all week. 

you, who are too holy for metaphor, 
who i compare anyway 
to psalms and plagues and 
the way light spills through stained glass 
as if trying to apologize for the sun. 

some days i believe in you 
more than i believe in breath. 
some days, that feels like enough.