Genesis

“The Pulpit and the Pyre” I was raised on scripture, on sermons that split silence like thunder, on pews that creaked beneath the weight of guilt. My collar was white. My hands were clean. My heart? A locked tabernacle. Then she came— not with fire, but with the scent of it. Ash in her breath, wings like burnt parchment, eyes that remembered Eden and mourned it. She didn’t speak in tongues. She spoke in tremors. In truths too jagged for holy books. She said, “Redemption is a myth they sell to keep you obedient. But love? Love is the real heresy.” I touched her hand and felt every hymn I’d ever sung collapse into smoke. She kissed me like a confession. I kissed back like a sin. And somewhere, between the pulpit and the pyre, we built a gospel of our own. No angels wept. No devils cheered. Only silence, and the sound of grace falling like feathers on scorched earth.