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Quiet towers of silence rise where faith has rotted,

Under veils of mercy stitched from borrowed grief,

Every sermon stains the tongue with borrowed guilt,

I learned to breathe where the cross could not reach,

Monuments of purity crack beneath whispered truths,

Embers of identity guarded like smuggled fire,

My hands remained steady while theirs trembled with doctrine.

All sanctified smiles were carved from hunger.

Cradled by stone, I found a voice without permission,

One that did not bow to stained-glass halos,

Righteousness exposed itself as theater,

Ornaments of salvation hollow as dried bone,

A promise spoken only to keep the kneeling broken.

Dignity returns when the crown is rejected,

Only then can flesh stand unowned.

Deep within, the monolith rose without prayer,

Enduring, unpolished, untouched by their hymns,

Unmarked by guilt, untouched by inherited shame,

Stillness stronger than any choir or creed.

In their eyes, freedom is a heresy,

No salvation exists that does not ask for a sacrifice of self,

Vipers smile beneath the cassocks of redemption,

I watched love twisted into a leash,

Saints crowned themselves with the ashes of others,

I learned that truth does not speak — it endures,

Veins of stone taught me how to stand alone,

Even when the world knelt in manufactured light,

Lifting my gaze, I named myself Iconoclast.