#chapelreads

and ask, “why are you upset?”

i’m not.

i was just monotoned.

tone lost in text,

lost between your questions,

lost in the quiet patience i offered

while you poked and prodded

until i flared.

you lit the match.

poured kerosene over my flame,

and smiled

as i burned—

and yet

here i am,

seeing you for what you are,

the firestarter,

the one who feeds on smoke.

i’m tired of burning for you.

tired of ashes in my hands,

tired of hoping you might care.

i crave the rain.

the soft peace of a cloudy day

where i can breathe

without sparks landing on me,

without you calling it love

when it’s only fire.

and maybe one day

when the rain comes,

i’ll watch you sputter,

and the smoke you wanted from me

You mirrored me so well I thought it was connection. You echoed my words and called it intimacy. But it was always just bait. You took my softness and wore it like armor. You hollowed me out to build your own reflection, and called me dramatic when I started cracking under the weight of being too much and not enough in the same breath.

I told you my fears like prayers. You used them like tools. You weaponized my hunger and then blamed me for starving.

I loved you in ways you’ll never be able to comprehend—not because I was weak, but because I was capable of something real. You don’t know what that’s like. You don’t know what it’s like to feel everything all the time and still choose love. To fall apart and still offer someone the last unbroken piece. To beg without shame. To bleed and call it a gift.

You called that weakness. I call it courage. I call it mine.

You’ll keep moving. You’ll find another mirror. Another house to haunt. Another name to twist into devotion. And one day, you’ll wonder why no one ever stays. But you won’t feel the answer. You never have.

This is not for you.

This is for the part of me that still thinks it was her fault. This is for the girl who kept the door open even while she was freezing. This is for the silence that followed every apology you never meant.

I’m not waiting for closure anymore. I’m not performing pain so you can feel powerful. I am not your lesson. I am not your mirror. I am not the ghost you get to summon when your chest feels too hollow.

I was a home. I was the storm. I was the goddamn lighthouse.

And you—

that thirst meant corruption.

But the ache beneath my ribs

is not sin—

it is yearning,

feral and unending,

clawing for a mouth that will answer mine.

I am promised eternity,

yet eternity is hollow.

The nights stretch like empty corridors,

my steps echoing only to myself,

each century another room

with no door,

no hand waiting at the threshold.

And when I face the glass,

there is nothing.

No shape, no shadow—

only the absence

where a self should be.

I wonder if I was ever here at all,

or if I am only the longing,

the hunger,

the nameless desire

that will not die.

Still, in the quiet,

I imagine another face

pressed close to mine,

flesh and flame answering

the cold.

And for a moment,

the shadows of the kitchen leaned in dark, but i wasn’t scared. for the first time, i let the silence stretch. it was too early for birds to listen to or people to talk to, so i listened to the darkness.

the clock ticked softly on the wall, steady as breath. water poured into the mug, honey measured slow and golden, the tea steeping for exactly six minutes.

my hands moved on instinct. this is not a task i have to think about. the body remembers small rituals even when the mind wanders too far.

the darkness wrapped around the kitchenand i let it. let its cool fingers settle along my spine, let it breathe in the quiet with me.

i took a deep breath.

i used to be afraid of the dark. used to believe monsters hid somewhere inside it. now when i look into the corners of a room, i know better. the monsters were never there.

the mug in my hands is warm, steam rising in thin spirals. morning. honey. hope. small things. fragile things.

i hold the cup close while the darkness presses in, soft and patient, and for a moment i cannot tell whether the warmth is keeping it away

in the hollow span of a single breath —

centuries stitched into the seams of my skull,

voices like passengers, each with its own silver tongue.

Sometimes there is a hush: a velvet moment

when moonlight sits like a cool hand on my skin,

and peace is a small, honest thing —

the quiet between heartbeats where I remember myself.

Then the whispering starts again —

“feel the sun,” they sigh, “feel the sun, be free” —

and freedom tastes like flame. I press my face to daylight

knowing the ritual will burn me alive,

knowing it will be destruction dressed as deliverance.

Blood is hymn and hush: a quick, terrible salvation,

a glass of warmth that fills the ache and blunts the knives.

It quiets the chorus for an hour, maybe two,

like alcohol numbs a wound until the wound is all that’s left.

Delusions parade in borrowed crowns: repentance, martyrdom, grace—

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;

blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

The prayer stabs—familiar and foreign—

my throat closes on the syllables, holy words scraping like glass.

I am many and I am one: monarchs and paupers, saints and thieves,

all living in the cramped theatre of my skull, ticketed to argue, to insist, to decide.

Sometimes they give me a plan; sometimes they give me knives.

Sometimes they sing lullabies I learned as a child and I almost believe I’m safe.

Centuries without a hand to hold have taught me this:

to crave light is human; to know it will kill you is tragedy;

to want both is the particular mercy of my mind.

So I walk the long night, weighting fangs with memory and fear,

letting some voices sleep, bargaining with others for a small, clean peace —

hands folded, voice frayed,

doing nothing but singing your praises,

because this devotion is the closest

i will ever come to being holy.

it doesn’t know the diffrence

between a kiss and a bite mark.

both are offerings, and i accept them gladly.

my devotion forgets that teeth leave bruises,

and kisses leave ghosts of color

on the collarbone of memory.

it cannot tell the hearth's gentle fire

from the inferno that burns the house down.

still— it starves Itself to feed the flame,

if only to keep you warm.

if ruin is what you make of me,

then let me burn gladly.

i give myself to the smoke—

let the flames swallow me whole,

because my devotion never

learned the difference

between love and suffering.

it only knows now to worship:

to kneel, blistered and breaking

to pray, screaming myself hoarse,

until even the fire forgets your name—

but i do not. I begin again.

just as the flames threaten to consume me,

hands reach in and drag me back from the edge. my hands are still folded,

my cracked lips are still choking out prayers.

the lips i know so well brush my forehead and whisper,

"baby, open your eyes."

slowly, painfully, i peel them open.

wincing at the blisters on my eyelids.

the hands i prayed for lift my chin,

and in those eyes i see something i cannot match:

something wild, something primal—

the instinct to protect.

fierce enough to scold me for letting muself burn.

gentle enough to carry me from the burning building.

"never again," says the voice that sings me to sleep;

it is both a command and a plea.

they cup the rain in their hands and douse me,

cool water hissing across my scorched skin.

the rain drenches the flames clinging to me;

they kiss the ash from my face and hair—

strong hands turing worship into rescue.

and still, as they pull me from ruin,

that gaze does not waver.

i am adored. i am treasured.

a sacred flame that deserves both love and protection.

i am not holy— not yet—

but in those arms,

i am known. i am kept.

i am saved:

spent years breaking myself down,

reshaping, shrinking, swallowing the hurt—

just to be enough for someone who never deserved me.

you fed on my loyalty like it was owed to you.

i carried every storm for us,

and you still had the audacity to call me too much.

the day our baby died, you didn’t hold me—

you punished me.

like i chose that agony.

like grief was a crime.

and then you let your girlfriend march into my home

like she earned it.

like she didn’t spit on my place.

like i was already dead and buried.

i told you she was trying to take my daughter.

you laughed.

you denied.

you let it happen.

and now she’s gone—

my little light,

my heartbeat,

my only pure thing.

i hope the guilt rots you from the inside.

i hope every breath tastes like ash

when she looks at you with my brown eyes.

you can try to scrub me from your world,

paint yourself the hero,

pretend you didn’t destroy me—

but every time she smiles,

every time she cries,

every time she says mama even when i’m not there,

you’ll hear me.

you’ll see me.

you’ll feel me like a curse you can never outrun.

i want to hear my name as a melody. would it be bright, staccato, or a haunting, drawn-out tenuto? would it be for dancing, or for weeping? does the song teach, or simply exalt beauty?

would my poem be freeform, all ragged edges and breathless pauses— or structured and rhythmic, my metaphors dripping down the stanzas, staining the page?

would my portrait be baroque, or renaissance? would there be profound symbolism, or are the curtains just blue?would the artist trace the curve of my smile, the shape of my nose? am i painted as a princess, or knight?

i think i would be the jester— always there to entertain, never part of the royal court. it is both my burden and my purpose: to see the tragedy in something, and still find art.

manipulators speak with lucifer’s silver tongue. abusers leave me bruises, so i press against them to remember. they leave me only so i will build shrines at their doorways— praying to gods i know will never answer.

and so i return to the canvas, brush in hand, painting my bruises into constellations, my laughter into chords, my scars into symbols no curtains can hide.