Body, Blood, Bite

They said,
“This is the body of Christ.”
And I said,
“Cool. What’s the calorie count on that?”
because I’ve been fasting on forgiveness for two decades and still haven’t lost the weight of shame.

The wafer hit my tongue like a dare.
Dry as dogma.
Thin as virtue.
Holy like trauma made palatable.
Tastes like chalk and childhood and a thousand things I never got to say because silence is the sacred language of girls in plaid, pleated skirts.

I bit the body of Christ in half.
Not to be disrespectful — to survive.
Because I was starving and you don’t not eat when someone finally hands you something.
Even if it’s thin and flavorless and makes your mouth feel like sin.

Then came the wine.
Dark red.
Sacred.
Allegedly.

“This is the blood.”
And I drank it like a girl who’s been bleeding for years and was finally offered someone else’s mess to swallow instead.

It burned like cheap merlot and unkept promises.
Didn’t reach the ache.
Didn’t patch the hole.
Didn’t call me holy.
Didn’t know my name.

They said,
“You’ve been fed.”
But I walked out hungrier than when I came in.
Ravenous and rabid with a mouth full of scripture I never asked for and a stomach full of metaphor.

Wafer girl.
Wine girl.
Worship-me-through-it girl.
Sickly sacred.
Pale with praise.
The kind of girl who cries after communion and blames herself for not being moved.

I wanted steak.
I wanted thunder.
I wanted God to look me in the face and say,
“I’m sorry I let them hurt you.”

Instead, I got breadcrumbs.
Instead, I got pageantry.
Instead, I got a room full of men who’ve never bled for anything holding the keys to my body like it’s theirs to lock.

I spit out the wafer.
Swallowed the wine.
Wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and left teeth marks in the memory of it.

This is my body.
And I don’t owe it to anyone.
This is my blood.
And I’m done letting it be symbolic.

If hunger is a sin, then I was born guilty.
And if this is salvation, then I want to burn.

Because I took their sacrament, chewed through the silence, drank down the shame, and I’m still fucking starving.