The Old Hunger

When I look at you,
I understand the old hunger
of going to my knees.

Not because you’re a god.
Because something in me
still wants to worship
what it can’t explain.

I would bring you everything
I ever hid from the world.
Prayers. Blood.
The beautiful things I kept
so nobody could ruin them.

I would burn the room down to candlelight.
Say your name
until it sounded like a vow
I didn’t mean to make.

And I would know the danger.

Devotion looks holy
till the beloved turns into an altar
and you forget
where your knees stop
and the offering starts.

That scares me more than your face does.
Not that you were made like that.
That when I stand in front of you,
some old part of me
still wants to kneel.