A Heretic’s Lament

I am certain that this nightly torture is of my own doing,

Emanating from words that lingered at the root of my tongue long enough

That they soured; the bitter milk of feigned piety and fear,

I whisper them now to four walls and a ceiling, eggshell white and judging.

Perhaps I could deceive myself and still half-believe

That fate, karma, or a sinister Godhead placed us in this numbing limbo,

Where we can neither step backwards nor forwards,

Locked in a false friendship, swallowing another pill to buy another dream.

Rolling onto my back, laying a pillow across my thighs,

Eyes closing, I pretend to feel your weighted heat, I shudder and am sick.

Evening is here and the moon names me “hypocrite”.

Sweated sheets hold me in the ways you can’t, red shame sits on my cheek.

These are hours of atonement, sober in their misery.

The stars would tell me were they not bade silent, if I face time itself alone.

In those weakening moments, I try to fool my mind

That I am still asleep and that our souls are strewn together with golden string,

That the vacancy in this chest is but a melancholy mood

Possessing a weary heart for minutes at a time; and I know, I can believe that,

Halfway across the world, behind a higher window,

A candle burns, an ever-drowning flame rising just above a pool of liquid wax.

The candle, the one I gave you, the scent familiar,

A gift favored in your sight for the memories it does revive of our journey.

If this fire burns brighter, though unacknowledged,

Greater love yet remains, hot enough that God himself cannot extinguish it.