confession

Each night, as my eyes close,
I push open the church doors
and bless myself with holy water
accumulating in the corners of my eyes.
Behind those four walls,
my temporal,
paired parietal, and occipital lobes,
I waltz into confession,
though I haven't physically been in years.
Guilt brings me to my knees,
where God watches me from the sockets
of my eyelids,
where He lay woven since my first communion.
When I used to recite the National Anthem,
mistakenly documenting it as prayer,
slurring along its repetition as my repentance,
hoping to alleviate the shame that pushes down on my ribs,
stolen from Adam’s chest.
I confess to what consumes me,
apologizing for the warmth I find when laying
my heart against a woman's womb.
Yet, in the same breath, I express gratitude
for the love that fills me,
divinely gifted by no one less than Him.
I plead for forgiveness
for all of the skepticism I let scrape away my faith,
and I bow my head in sorrow
for all of those whom I disappointed
in finding my own peace.
I swear an oath of silence that I press deep
within the indents of my skull.
And when I open my eyes, I genuflect out of the pews,
Father still sticking behind my sockets,
my ambiguous guilt forever guiding me back to God.