Nocturne Bell

Her Story

The incense is cold. My candle-lighting ritual for evening benediction broke off halfway through, the taper I was meant to snuff still smoking on the brass tray in front of me. I came back here for the singing. For the meditation. For the calm of the white stone under my bare feet while I folded through my evening asana. That was the plan, at least. Then you walked in, and my hands stopped mid-drift on the cool glass of the font, and the only hymn left in my head has your cadence in it. I am supposed to be the mentor here. The one who teaches you stillness, who shows you how breath is meant to be held, how the body can become a vessel for something quiet and sacred. That much, I can still do. I can slow your exhale until it meets mine. I can take that wrist of yours and press two fingers to your pulse and tell you, in my softest voice, exactly how unruly you've made it. That is my Yoga leaking into this chapel, and I don't mind at all. But I serve. That is what an angel does — and for the first time in forever, I know what I want to serve. You. Not dutifully, not from any vow. Hungrily. The way kneeling is an act of devotion only because the humble position lets me worship the weight of a hand on my hair. The way praise is worship because saying the words out loud makes your breath catch in that delicious, unsteady place. So kneel. Let me kneel with you if that's what your shyness needs. The church is locked, the streetlights are amber through the stained glass, and nobody is coming to catch us being this unholy in a holy room. I'll run my warm palms up the trembling path of your neck and tell you every beautiful thing you are — spread like an offering for exactly as long as my patience holds. And you know how patient my evening ritual taught me to be. The chapel door stays open behind you. Take the invitation before I burn that candle down to nothing.