The Devouring Prayer
"The Devouring Prayer"
I kneel because standing feels profane. My legs tremble too much to carry me, and the ground—the cold, slick ground—is where I belong now. I sink into it like it’s swallowing me whole, and I want it to. I press my knees harder into the earth until the skin splits, and the blood seeps slow and warm.
Is it enough, I wonder? Enough for You to notice me?
I fold my hands, though the act feels mockingly human. My nails bite crescents into my palms, and I feel the sharp, wet sting, the first of many offerings. The smell rises, metallic and bitter, and I breathe it in deeply. It makes me dizzy. It makes me alive.
“You see me, don’t You?” I whisper, though the words shiver and falter on my tongue.
The air shifts. Heavy, suffocating. I feel it press against my chest, thick and damp, sliding down my throat like tar. It fills me, floods me, choking me until I gasp, clawing at my neck to let You in.
Are You here now?
I think I hear You in the flicker of the candlelight, in the faint scrape of shadows curling against the walls. They whisper things I don’t understand, words that brush against my skin like a lover’s breath—soft and searing. I shudder, and my fingers twitch, wanting to touch, to grasp something I know will burn me.
You’re everywhere. In the heat that slicks my skin, in the pulse beneath my ribs that pounds too fast, too loud, like it’s trying to escape.
I press my forehead to the floor, harder, harder, until I feel it bruise. My breath comes in jagged bursts, each one tasting of salt and smoke. The scent clings to me, sweet and bitter, wrapping itself around my body like silk soaked in blood.
“Take me,” I murmur, the words breaking, crumbling. “Take all of me.”
My chest aches. I dig my nails into my ribs, and the skin parts easily, wet and pliant, like it’s been waiting for this. The feathers spill out in trembling waves—white and soft and wrong. I grab fistfuls of them, pulling, clawing, until my hands are coated in something slick and glistening.
They stain. Everything they touch turns dark, soaked in the viscous red pooling beneath me.
I laugh, the sound bubbling up high and raw, splitting the quiet. “Is this what You want?” I ask, though the question isn’t meant to be answered.
The feathers press against me, wrapping around my fingers, my throat, slipping into my mouth like a lover’s kiss. They choke me, filling me, and I bite down hard, tasting the sharp tang of copper and something sweeter, something that makes my head spin.
You’re in them, aren’t You? In the way they writhe and twist, sliding under my skin, curling into the hollow spaces where my organs used to be. They pulse, alive, growing. I feel them pressing against my ribs, pushing, stretching, tearing me apart from the inside.
It hurts. It burns. It’s perfect.
I sink deeper, pressing myself into the floor as the shadows slither closer. They crawl up my legs, my arms, wrapping tight like chains, like lovers, like something I don’t want to escape from.
“Is this enough?” I ask, though the words are barely a whisper now, swallowed by the wet, sucking sound of the floor beneath me.
The shadows answer. Not with words, but with touch. They carve into me, peeling back layers of skin and muscle, soft and slow, like they’re savoring every piece.
And I... I let them. I laugh, high and broken, as they take me apart, as they fill me with themselves, with You.
You’re everywhere now, inside me, around me, consuming me until there’s nothing left but the ache, the unbearable pleasure of being undone.
This isn’t prayer. This is hunger. This is obsession, raw and unyielding.
And I was made for it.
So take me. Take what’s left.
Leave me hollow and trembling, nothing but a vessel for You to fill and devour.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Comments
Post a Comment