Cathedral of Cracks

Cathedral of Cracks

My heart was never marble, never spotless, never sure;

It’s brick and plaster, rent-controlled, resistant, and half impure.

Yet every wound you’d call a flaw, each seam the daylight tracks,

has turned these tired ribs into a cathedral made of cracks.

--

The ceilings peel in constellations, paint in quiet flake.

The choir loft is cluttered with the promises that break.

Still, when the afternoon leans in and tips its golden fax,

The beams arrive in holy stripes through every wounded ax.

--

I used to grout the fractures shut and polish more.

to stack my shame like hymnals by a self-reproaching door.

I’d hide the chips and spider lines, the hairline, splintered facts,

afraid you’d light a match and leave this cathedral of my cracks.

--

Then grief rang out its heavy bell and shook the rafters thin;

old glass gave way, and windows wept, and I let weather in.

The storm rewrote the liturgy; the silence dropped its acts.

and puddles on the checkerboard held sky inside their backs.

--

You walked the aisle with careful steps, not dodging what was torn.

You traced the places thunder slept, the corners grief had worn.

You didn’t fix or sanctify or lay out silver tacks—

You only said, “I see the light that pours through all these cracks.”

--

Now candles live where plaster fell; small altars bloom in dust.

The benches creak like honest bones that still remember trust.

I sweep, but leave the fractures be; they’re maps, not moral lacks—

directions drawn in fault line script across these living tracts.

--

So if you come here seeking stone, a perfect, polished nave,

You’ll find instead a broken hall that still knows how to be brave.

No choir robes, just jackets hung; no flawless, shining wax—

just songs that echo kinder through a cathedral built of cracks.

--

And when the night leans heavy in, and doubt patrols the doors,

The moon slips through the ruined roof in crooked silver pours.

I kneel, not to be made brand-new, but simply to relax—

to thank the light for finding me by way of all my cracks.