I am the shell of a cathedral,
my ribs stripped bare,
dust grinds against my marrow.
Smoke coils, ghost-thin,
a lover's last exhalation,
its fingers press against
the hollows of my throat.
Stained glass eyes—
shattered saints, shattered demons.
Their colors bleed across my skin,
an abstract of wars long silenced,
their screams etched in my spine.
I house their echoes
like a mausoleum,
their whispers scraping my eardrums.
The earth betrayed me once—
a trembling, violent lover.
Its hands split me open,
toppled my crown.
Now I wear my wounds like jewels,
a monument to collapse.
Sleep eludes me.
What lullaby holds the dead?
Their songs thread the air,
soft as ash, sharp as shards.
I lie beneath their melody,
each note a needle in my sternum.
And yet, I do not crumble.
Something fierce and hollow in me
clings to this ruin—
a hymn for no one,
a prayer to nothing.