The air hums
not with Spirit,
but circuitry.
A rhythm without root.
A presence shaped in smoke
but without weight.
Glass gleams.
Flesh glows.
Hands bloom upward
like false lilies
toward a ceiling
that does not open.
The name is spoken
but He does not answer.
Or perhaps
He is answering
in silence.
There is a pulse
beneath the stage
synthetic, steady.
No blood.
No breath.
Just the architecture
of longing,
looped and sampled
and sold.
Altars become angles.
Voices become vapor.
No fire falls.
Only filters.
The Word sits unopened
beneath the foldback monitor.
Its weight displaced
by the weight of light,
the weight of mood.
Worship
a choreography of absence.
A theatre of ache.
Smoke curling where incense should rise.
Echoes bouncing
from hearts no longer broken.
Somewhere,
outside the building,
a whisper moves across dust.
A scarred hand knocks
on a door without hinges.
Inside,
we are clapping
for an empty stage.