Mass

I was born with a number
stitched beneath my tongue,

a soft, metallic insect
scratching behind my eyes.

The world had already rotted -
fruit collapsed into itself like ashamed suns,

thick tar rivers already turned inward.

I walked the empty corridors of mercy,
unmeasured and open wounds
weeping embalming fluid.

Tears cracked the air
in fractures dissolved in soil.

The dead were not erased
but folded back into
the mouths of the living
to cling to grief with
trembling hands and open throats-

Love rituals should not be clean.

Love is not efficient.

I listened to the language
of sodden hymn,
took communion
as small token
of compliance.

Something inside me-
a quiet, obedient ledger-
began to narrow.

The air thickened
to speak your name.

The heart once worn
like a tailored skin,
now hung loose and dripping.

I saw then-
how we had eaten not just bodies
but a horror and quiet violence,

I ran-

not away,
but through.

through the glass-eyed
fields of despair-
until the weight fell off
like scabs of intimacy.

And I understood-

To consume
is not the horror.

To forget what you are consuming-
to rename it and call it mercy-

that is where your soul begins to stretch.

So I opened my mouth
not to take in air,
but to feel the bitter, sacred,
unbearable whole of it
in my throat.