sacrament

shrouded in fuzzy darkness,

melting into the couch,

i polish the dust off

a belated revelation.

already disinterred

from sandy silence,

it settles into my marrow

as you mutter about the end times.

i know i love you,

for i know i will write you.

if to be flattered is to be copied,

i will paste a facsimile

of your smile onto thin air.

i’ll collate fragments of memory,

craft permanence from the ephemeral.

wrap each idiosyncrasy

into a net of extraneous nature,

sewing quirks into ghostly bones.

once, we stood side by side,

our clammy hands clasped,

hearing tales of mad emperors,

their dead lovers deified.

i’ve no altar to tend,

no libation to burn;

the peak of my devotion

is puppeteering your effigy.

embroidering your freckles

into the cheeks of a lost princess,

the ring of gold in your eye

dolloped into a knight’s.

i’d resurrect you in words,

etch my prayers onto paper,

parse away all the bits

i’d immortalise.

in the end, you expect righteous wrath.

statues raised in your image,

marble chiseled by my grief.

still breathing, you request

that your face soon haunts temples,

fanning the flame of blasphemy.

i know nothing of ruling

and little of prayer.

but you’ve chosen to pair

with a trueborn troubadour.

the word is hardwon 

and slow to emerge;

no crown may advocate.

i promise to take pen to paper,

swallow scraps of you as sacrament.

Nadja Lima (IG: @honeyroses_) is a non-binary Portuguese-Angolan writer and poet. Their work explores the intersections of trauma, religion, mental health, and gender. They are interested in themes of ancestral memory, the inevitability of time, the creation of myths, and the depths of quotidienne horror harbored within the AFAB body.