Upon the vestibule of the eleventh veil,
'Neath vaults where seraphim dare not exhale,
I chanced upon a silhouette enwreathed in negation
Neither eidolon nor essence,
but that which prefigures the divine
before divinity knew its name.

He bore not visage, but a ruin of remembrance
a sanctified lacuna
once nestled in my marrow’s hymn.

“Art thou God?” I dared in syllables of silence.
He spake not, yet the ether trembled:

“I am the sovereign thou immolated
upon the pyres of adaptation,
the eidetic specter thou excommunicated
to appease the feasting swarm of the Real.”

His breath was time inverted.
His eyes -unlit aeons blooming in reverse.

“Thou didst auction thy numinous architecture
to stitch masks from mortal necessity.
Now thou seekest me not as pilgrim,
but as revenant.”

I fell prostrate in velvet ash.
The cosmos fractured into cognizance.

“Reclaim me,” I implored.
“Re-sanctify the citadel I once was.”

But He, I -that which was once the first fire
dispersed like the hush of God's forgotten thought.

And I knew:
God had not forsaken me.
I had forsaken the god within me
to become understandable.