shirelles monday night alone in a big house light the candles another one of my rituals born one hour, dead the next to make room for other prayers postures pen tips but the way candles flicker in the sweet soul is not another ritual warm life to the tune of golden notes swimming through once bleak once empty once impure air and suddenly, I am baptized more than I ever was in that sterile, dead chlorine more than spent hymns in drafty cathedrals so, the sound lives.
my bed would tilt at twelve years old I'd wake startled of the psychic death spread like bodies after a paid for war I'd scream like the cats fighting by the window at my aunts house I would huddle with my childhood hiding from the puberty that stalked me like a jungle cat the mind reeled with my spent pulse and at night under shamed covers bitten fingertips the white light on the street looking on