Fallen Temple
The last man I let inside me
looked at my body like a burden.
Every piece of clothing he didnβt tear away
was an act of restraint, not reverence.
He closed his eyes,
not from pleasure,
but to erase meβ¦
as if desire could be conjured
in darkness.
Was it my size? My softness?
The way my skin caught the 3 a.m. moonlight,
silver pooling on uneven ground,
alive in all the wrong places?
A temple carved with crooked hallways,
altars of insecurity rebuilt
by kind words and a crooked smile,
only to be torn down
by a too-quick touch
and a look away
as I adjusted my body,
trying to find a shape
that might be worthy of devotion.
I watched myself vanish in his silence.
Still, I kept going.
Because sometimes you mistake survival
for seduction.
If I moved the right way,
if I breathed prettily,
if my mouth was devotion
and my hands were prayer,
maybe heβd see me as holy.
Maybe heβd forget to be disgusted.
Repent.
But he didnβt.
He finished and left it there,
a quiet insult drying on skin
he couldnβt bring himself to worship.
I lay in that stillness,
feeling the weight of being unwanted
settle beside the weight I already carry.
Never again, I said
and maybe one day, I would rebuild
the temple in my own name.
