I hit the side door laughing with the dust still on my black boots,
cheap smoke in my lungs and a bad moon under my skin
Gold saints stared down from the ceiling
while the old boards held their breath and the choir kept polishing up its grin
I was raised where the porch light dies and mercy gets sold for rent,
where boys learn fast how hunger barks through bone
Now I’m stalking through the incense, nosing out the rot in the rafters,
hearing polished prayers drip ice from a borrowed throne
They said wipe your feet, shut your mouth,
leave your dirt out on the steps, keep your past locked down deep in the yard
My past walked right beside me, mean and breathing,
dragging chains of busted summer nights and county road scars
I saw rich hands folded clean while poor backs bent in the shadows,
I saw grief dressed up and marched between the pews
I heard guilt poured like wine from silver cups to shaking lips,
heard fear dressed high and sold around as truth
If holiness wants a leash on my throat, let it break
If grace needs crawling, I’d rather stand up wild and awake
I’m a dawg in the houses of the holy, muddy paws on polished stone
I’m a growl where they wanted whisper,
I’m a scar where they wanted bone-white tone
Let the organ choke on smoke, let the stained glass rattle in its frame
I didn’t come for pardon, I came to make that cold air answer and to level blame
There was a girl in the back row staring
like a blade in a flood, jaw locked tight on years she never said
A boy tried singing through a tremble
while his father wore a Sunday smile sharp enough to leave him red
An old man bent like winter held his hat against his chest,
smaller than the debt they preached was his from birth
That room was full of human thunder getting told their ache was proof they ought to kiss the floor and thank the earth
Then I climbed those steps unasked, heartbeat kicking
like a floor tom, every eye snapping hard against my hide
I said your god ain’t deaf, your walls are, your mercy limps
when power grips the book and calls the wound a guide
I said a starving man needs supper, not a lecture,
and a bruised wife needs a kicked-in door, not one more chain
I said any heaven worth a damn should shake when broken people enter,
should wash the blood from working hands like rain
I don’t trust clean mouths with dirty fists behind their backs
I’d take one street-born heartbeat over ten thousand polished acts
Maybe faith was never the wound, maybe hands were,
maybe greed was, maybe men built cages then called them safe
Maybe love walks midnight alleyways with addicts
and widows and kids still flinching every time the floorboards shake
Maybe every true hallelujah sounds ragged, half-broken,
dragged back from the edge with dirt packed in its teeth
I’d rather howl one honest line that splits the rafters open than sing one pretty lie
and drown beneath belief
I’m a dawg in the houses of the holy, black pulse under the choir’s drone
I’m a storm beneath the steeple, I’m the bastard truth they never could own
Let the benches shake beneath them, let the profits turn dumb and tame
I came with all the buried voices,
and I’m leaving pawprints in the eternal flame