Moon at Half Past Noon

Religion’s fist clamps my frail soul,
Its hymns a venom seeping through my veins.
I kneel, a puppet, to gods of stone,
Their creeds a noose around my throat’s soft pulse.

Each prayer I choke on, steals my breath,
My will a cinder in their altar’s flame.
I tried once to doubt, to crack their law,
But sermons lashed my mind to ash.

Choice is a spark they douse with oil,
A whisper crushed beneath their iron psalms.
The stars are lies the priest decrees,
My heart a cell for their grim decrees.

I’m not my own—my pulse their drum,
Beating to dogmas I cannot unlearn.
The church’s vault, a tomb of light,
Swallows my questions, blinds my sight.

My knees bleed raw from their stone floor,
My voice a ghost they won’t abide.
The moon’s a skull, grinning at my chains,
And I, a moth, burn in their sacred fire.
No choice survives their altar’s glare—
My soul’s a relic, theirs to bind.