temple body

i just wanted to memorize the sanctity of permission.

so i whittled my body into a golden cathedral, beating

soft & shuddering, just to prove there was something

buried in the valleys of my form that could not be

trespassed & abandoned, again & again. just to prove

i was heavy as powdered red brick, holiness gleaming

pure & unmarked. just to prove the world allowed dual

entry: i could baptize a mouth swollen like a stained

plum on the marble of my spine as gaping dawn, split

wide open. or i could pull away like melted petals,

watching dusk settle into the temple of my body.

in this world, i thought i would no longer lay frozen

within myself, wild & afraid, arms splayed

like scattered ellipsis. because what mattered

most was not the shape of the church but the warmth

inside its spilling veins: my heart pebbled with the heat

of hazy maple armor running thin as cello strings

but sonorous like the aching shadows of possession

through the stained-glass panes, flush with light.

outside, the sun dripped freely down the crevices

of the earth, burning & forbidden. the thighs

of the hinterlands whispered my name in the dark,

possibility shuttering in & out. i thought my body

became a shrine, worshipped & protected for the sake

of itself. but the fire-lipped shackles of womanhood

never fell away. & the next bitter night, i was pressed

back on another bed that wasn’t mine, frayed cotton

sheets moving in sluggish timbre, yielding like drowning

water. undulating again & again.