Time to strip it down,
let go, give up, bleed dry.
No more indulgence,
no more easy pleasures.
Just the raw burn of sacrifice.

Less taking.
More giving.
Less speaking.
More silence.
Less hunger for the world.
More hunger for something greater.

The carnival is over.
Masks fall, shatter,
but some hands still grip tight,
fingers pressed to painted smiles,
afraid to show the cost of truth.

Sacrifice is not just hunger,
not just ribs sharp beneath the skin,
not just lips cracked in thirst.
It is the breaking,
the bending,
the letting go of what once defined you.

Forty days of fire.
Forty days of undoing.
Keeping our addictions in control, under reign,
dragging them behind us like beasts in chains.
Let the cravings claw.
Let the body ache.
Let the soul burn clean.

They walk in procession,
heads bowed, feet bare,
whispers lost in the wind.
Prayers not for comfort,
not for ease,
but for strength to endure.

Because sacrifice is not just giving up.
It is offering.
It is surrender.
It is standing at the edge of yourself
and stepping off—
trusting that the fall
will be caught by something holy.