Confession:

Love is the way he prays,

Pressing holy words into my neck.

He takes me into his arms without hesitation,

Accepting my burden,

My sin.

He holds my heavy head to his heart with hallowed hands

And welcomes that weight as love, whispering to his God.

(Father)

I don’t know how to pray.

(Bring her peace)

I don’t know how to sit in pews

(Bring her comfort)

Without the feeling of a thread pulling beneath my skin,

(Bring her love)

An unravelling colored by stained glass.

The front seat of my mother’s van becomes a confessional,

His ribcage my altar.

There is sanctity in his touch and the breath shared between us.

I have learned that leather does not mean love,

even when it cools the bare of my back

And reflects the steam onto windows.

It may comfort for an instant, bring momentary relief,

But love does not lie in the leather of car seats.

Rather, it is in the way he brushes my tears and anxieties away

With the single movement of the back of his hand,

In the way he says my name before his God.

I learned more about the divine in his tears,

In his shaking shoulders and deepest fears,

Than any sermon could possibly preach.

Through him I am

forgiven,

whole,

loved.

(Amen)