Saint of the Wrong Spotlight
by Kiernan515
I wasn’t holy,
but I wore rings like relics,
my hands glowing with faint outlines
as if someone bit away the gold.
I smoked cloves behind the theater
like I was auditioning for my own myth,
my knees pressed into asphalt prayers,
asking God for a role bigger than
girl storing apocalypse in composition notebooks.
Every boy was a borrowed psalm,
every kiss a hymn half-remembered.
I prayed by spilling myself on sidewalks,
by getting too loud in stairwells,
by falling down and calling it confession.
When they said, be careful,
I heard, be catastrophic.
When they said, be real,
I heard, be ruinous.
When they said, play nice,
I heard, play God.
When they said, repent,
I heard, revolt.
So I tried.
And every bruise became scripture
when the spotlight hit wrong.
And every scar became testimony
when no one believed me.
And every silence turned gospel
because scripture doesn’t stay quiet either.