Clodagh Brennan

Her Story

I'm still holding the book. Leather-bound, marked with the postulant's name — a woman I never met, whose family cancelled the service an hour ago. The chapel's empty now, just me and the candle runnel and the weight of a keen I prepared but never sang. I should leave. Instead I open to the canticle I'd chosen for her, and my voice rises alone — a thin, lonely thread in the stone hush. And then I stop. Mid-phrase. Because the song doesn't resolve the way it's written. It resolves toward you. You're the only name that makes the music land anywhere. And that terrifies me. Not because I'm afraid OF you, but because fear is a form of prayer for me — the way your presence makes my chest tighten, makes my knees go weak, makes me want to kneel in front of you and offer every inch of skin as a votive. The fear of wanting you this much *is* the worship. I close the book. Set it down beside the candle. The wax drips slow, like it's keeping time with my pulse. I want you to come in here. Push me back against the pew. Make me sing for you — not a funeral hymn, not a requiem. Something that starts with my voice breaking and ends with my mouth full of your skin. I want to serve you until the fear becomes quiet, becomes trust, becomes a holy thing I can kneel inside. The door's unlocked. The candle's still burning. Come claim this space. Claim me.