Churches in America don’t ring like you,
Westminster Abbey.

Your ceilings could house the stars,
Contain the heavens that you sell
For a few pennies to believers.

You are the image of ancient faith
And I violate you
             with
                every
                     step.

The air that fills your lungs is
Tainted by my very breath.

For such an open cavity,
You crush my bones.

There’s a boy my age,
He sits alone in a wooden pew that stretches
For miles.
His hands fly over his chest,
tracing a cross that’s left a groove of somebody else’s bruises
Across his heart.
Inside his mind are the magnificent 
Golden gates of a promised future.

Your stone walls soak him in
Like a thirsty creature from some time
Long, long ago.

Candlelight paints itself across my chest,
Thousands of prayers,
                 And I’ve never prayed once.

Instead of worship, I have stolen you with my greedy eyes,
I have placed you on a dusty shelf in my mind,

Alongside Shiva’s pastel smile
And the lightning bolt
I pried from Zeus’s fingertips.