Golden.
I am teaching myself the quiet of aloneness, not the tender solitude of saints. But the kind that gnaws in the marrow and asks me over and over, if I was ever meant to be touched at all.
I keep saying I am comfortable, that I know myself. But the truth is I am a blurred outline, a girl smudged at the edges, a name without a voice. I hold her close, even when I do not recognize her.
I once believed in rescue, in some outstretched hand. In a savior with thorn bright promises who would lift me from this mud. But faith rotted in my mouth. Prayers curdled on my tongue. There is no one coming. Even God turns his face.
So I dig. My fingernails fill with soil, my knuckles split and ache. I drag the spade through filth and it feels like dragging it through my own flesh. Layer after layer of soft rot and stone. I dig until I am dizzy, until the world narrows to breath and dirt and nothingness.
If I do not dig, I will be buried here. If I do not carve myself free, I will be another unmarked grave. A girl forgotten beneath the worlds unblinking weight.
Still. I dream of gold. I dream of a gleam hidden in the blackness, something worth of blistered palms, something holy enough to forgive me. Not Gods chalice, not heavens light. Just a shard of radiance, to prove I am more than mud and silence.
One day, I tell myself, I will climb out of this pit carrying it, a golden ingot raised in my own trembling hands. No blessing but my blood smeared on its face. No prayer but the broken rhythm of my breath.
When I raise it, shaking, filthy, broken. It will be the only sacrament I believe in.
The only resurrection I can claim.