I loved the Lord once,
but He came to me in the shape of a boy—
bare knees in gym shorts,
breath sweet with Gatorade andblasphemy.

In church they said, The body is atemple.
But mine was a dungeon,
filled with echoes of his laughter
and the scent of my own undoing.

I learned to kneel early.
Not for pleasure,
but for forgiveness I never believedwould come.

Every sermon felt like a strip search,
every “Amen” an admission of guilt.
The priest raised the chalice
and I thought of his collarbone,
how it might taste of iron and rain.

They told me God was everywhere—
but I only found Him in the locker room,
between the steam and the silence,
watching the holy tremble
of my wanting.

And when the bell rang,
I folded my shame like a school uniform,
pressed and spotless,
as if salvation
could ever fit me.