Communion for the Poetic Sinner

By M. Allshouse

Tender youth brought me hollow happiness—

empty promises and half-written letters,

a byproduct of my mother’s silence

and a forgotten note from my father.

Tethered to inheritance

not in gold, but in hush.

I wilted in a garden of thorns,

each vine eager to squeeze joy from me

like blood from a fruitless vine.

My opinions were snuffed

like altar candles—

smoke curling in a cathedral,

the only remnant of a psyche

never allowed to bloom.

I prayed for my soul—

not for salvation,

but for a place that felt like home.

Years gave me trials,

tribulations I carried like heirlooms.

I longed for a pew

that didn’t crack beneath

the weight of hoarded grief—

each sorrow a bone

pulled from desecrated graves.

Abandonment sat brittle

at the bottom of my bag

before I even knew I’d packed one.

Altar boys beckoned me to commune,

to pray to their god—

but their god was the priest,

and their gospel, identical.

Kneeling felt like penance

on rosary beads.

My tears weren’t repentance,

they were suffocation.

Incense filled my lungs

with manipulation and smoke

until I couldn’t tell

which thoughts were mine

and which ones had been whispered in.

Even with age,

no house of god felt like home.

I was dragged to altars

by men I couldn’t refuse.

One was a god of war—

angry, beautiful,

a hymn on his tongue

and fire in his gaze.

I almost knelt for awe alone,

but his wrath made me flee

before the second verse.

Another was pride—

a god who wrapped me in warmth

that reeked of condescension.

I wore his sacraments

until they burned.

And still I wandered.

Gods of lust, of ego,

of quiet cruelty.

I knelt to none.

And when no altar welcomed me,

I built one from the bones I carried.

I laid my grief in mortar,

my words in stone.

I carved a cathedral from trauma

and lit the whole thing from within.

Here, praying is not kneeling.

It’s baptism in blood and verse.

It’s resurrection among kin.

It’s communion for the poetic sinner

who was told they were too much

for any pew.

So if you haven’t found your church—

Come.

I saved a seat for you.