Lukewarm

I have seen the place where the world burns without flame,
where faith and negation hiss like wires under snow.
Static filled the air, and the old prayer rewired,
the word God flickering on a broken screen.

The Priest says God loves the hot and the cold,
but spits out the lukewarm.
So I practiced each in turn
believing until I blistered,
denying until I froze.
Neither delivered me.

In the paralysis between breaths,
I met the whisper that calls itself absence.
It spoke gently, almost with pity:
You are mine, because you do not know whom you serve.

I told it no,
but my voice was foreign,
a stranger using my lungs.
It laughed, that dark clarity,
and I learned what it means to be lukewarm
to tremble but never ignite.

When I woke, the body was heavier.
The world looked bright, but cornered.
Every sound carried its double,
every silence its rival.

Now I keep the flame small.
I braid my days into ropes of order,
try to love what resists collapse.

But inside, the ember still argues,
God or the devil,
faith or fatigue,
heat or nothing at all.

And I fear that if I ever choose, truly choose,
the world might vanish,
or begin.