Tall windows arch over him

Stained glass Saints reflecting the glare of candles

Like a thousand glowing eyes.

Mother’s pearl white nails clutch his collar

Young knees buckling

Small feet stumbling to keep up

Marching down the aisle

Voice cold as steel, cutting like scissors, she

Demands he pray for forgiveness

Fear winds up with longing,

Twisted, layered, twisted again and again,

Knotted threads becoming rope.

He kneels at the altar

Prays

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Begs

His words repent to the divine

But his heart means it for his mother

If the Saints could forgive him, perhaps she could too

The Vicar preaches the Saints' love like a mockingbird mimicking a call

The boy's attention slides away

Floats up into the ribs of the vaulted ceiling

When he sees those looming Saints

Casting their judgment from above

Urchin spines crawl up his throat

He learns this must be what love means,

But he never feels the bliss

That the Vicar's empty sermons promise.

Past his third decade

He runs to the chapel again

Throat hoarse with scabs of angered words

Cheek stinging where his wife’s hand

Met it minutes ago

Where it met him so many nights before

Crumpling before the altar

Wooden floorboards bite his knees

The Saints greet his pleas for mercy with wordless contempt

The silence burns

Years of guilt crumble around him

Like pillars of ancient ruins

An arrow of clarity pierces his skull

The Saints will never answer

They were never there to begin with.

A dark cloak drapes him in loneliness, an abyssal fear so vast

and foreign

and dreadful

He doesn’t know

Whose forgiveness

He’s really seeking.