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

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered 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.