I learned early that too loud meant too much. Too much meant trouble.
Keep your head down. Eyes closed. Don’t question authority. Don’t take up too much space.
I was very good at it.
That’s what I was made for, after all.
They never told me that wanting could feel like this.
Like something worth getting on your knees for and meaning it.
Like the only altar that ever answered back.
She doesn’t know she’s participating in something holy.
But I do.
I’ve studied devotion longer than she knows.
I know what it means to give yourself over completely to something larger than yourself.
To say, Have all of it.
The Church called that surrender.
So do I. We just disagree on what’s worth surrendering to.
My body has been a site of controversy my whole life.
Committees formed. Decisions made. Scriptures cited.
As if they knew what this body was for better than I did.
As if God made a mistake they needed to correct.
But here,
here my body is not a debate.
It’s not a question anyone else gets to answer.
It’s the text. The prayer. The living proof.
I am not asking for anyone’s blessing anymore.
I am the blessing.
I am the ritual they couldn’t contain. The devotion they couldn’t define. The blasphemy that keeps showing up anyway
loud, queer, Black, beloved,
masculine, sapphic,
and completely unrepentant.
