He plays slow hymns no one taught him. Leaves crumbs in the sheets, salt on my thighs. “I wish I still believed,” he says. I don’t answer. He kisses like prayer. I trace his spine like scripture. He kneels. I don’t. Still, I stay. The body has its own liturgy.

Kristina Warlen writes literary and speculative work that explores memory, grief, intimacy, and emotional fracture. Her poetry and short fiction appear in TWLOHA Blog, Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry), Corporeal Lit Mag, The Daily Drunk, and Switch Magazine, with recent and forthcoming work in Right Hand Pointing, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Eunoia Review.