Communion Cracks
The chalice spun in trembling hands, red as a promise that never healed,
the priest invoked the body, and everyone knelt, but no one kneeled.
Wine passed from lips to lips, stale with secrets and sacred rot,
sanctuary air thick as dusk, where faith is bartered and trust forgot.
He raised the wafer, called it flesh, but hunger answered every tongue,
each prayer like dust upon the pew, chanted since the world was young.
His Latin curled through marble gloom, more curse than cure,
more rule than grace,
the table laid with memory–no miracle on the plate, just space.
He said “blood,” and bitterness filled the throat,
a briny sting that did not bless,
he sang of mercy, but the choir was strained,
and silence answered the emptiness.
The crowd bowed in ceremony, hollow hearts behind eyes gone cold,
redemption rinsed in holy wine, the rot of rituals grown old.
Guilt served in place of sacrament, no comfort found in the trembling crowd,
confession wrung for theater, tears dried beneath the shroud.
The wafer cracked between clenched teeth, a brittle script, a ghost of creed,
and all that broke was memory, not sin, not want, not need.
Latin for the lost, candles for the cursed,
the stained glass wept in morning’s glare,
but the only thing that changed was loneliness in the air.
The altar whispered “sacrifice,” but none were spared the blade,
just wine and fear, push and shove, forgiveness cheaply made.
A pageant of redemption, a gospel stitched with stains,
God’s voice receded into stone, unmoved by mortal pains.
Every prayer, every plea, every breath the congregation spent–
bounced back as static, unanswered, irrelevant.
The bread could not restore what faith had worn thin,
salvation was a rumor, redemption never let in.
The ritual ended in silence, nothing mended, nothing new,
the body bitten, the blood consumed, but the soul never broke through.
In the end, the congregation rose, the priest dismissed the crowd,
but every one walked out alone, heads bowed beneath a cloud.
Communion cracked, the wafer bled, but the wound was never healed,
God didn’t speak, and in the hollow hush, nothing was revealed.
They left behind an altar cold, the chalice empty, pews grown weak,
each carrying the ache of hunger
no rite could ever speak.