You taught me to love

in a dialect of exit signs.

So now,

my ribs turned to pews

where your memory

kneels every night.

I lit incense

in the folds of my skin

so grief could smell like home.

There are hymns in my spit—

unspoken, fossilized,

each one humming your name

like a broken violin

left in a rainstorm.

I carry your shadow

in my lungs,

exhaling it

like a slow funeral march

on Tuesdays.

You see—

I make altars from bruises.

Name pain after cities

I’ll never walk through.

Last week, I stitched

a window onto my chest

so I could watch

how you left.

And still—

I place a saucer

beneath my tongue

for the blood of your return.

I keep dreaming

of your hand

as a spoon,

scooping silence

out of my mouth.

And when i looked 

at the holy tongue,

God said nothing.

But the flies bowed.

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