Sanctum

I muted the world—
its clang of shoulds, its symphony of sorrow,
the static of strangers who never touched
the seam of my soul,
yet spoke like sages of my skin,
my sanctity, my scars

I silenced the noise
like closing a book that never knew my name
In the hush, I heard the hymn—
the psalmic pulse of my breath,
the whispered wisdom in my bones,
the language of my ligaments
unfolding like scripture,
each cell a shrine

My vessel knows
It knows in ways the world cannot pronounce—
how starlight curls in my womb,
how the oceans within me pray,
how my shadow dances with light
and births whole galaxies in stillness

I crowned myself not with gold,
but with knowing
Not with applause,
but with presence
The kind of knowing that cannot be bought,
cannot be borrowed,
cannot be spoken in tongues
that don’t first taste silence

I no longer open my gates
to hands that come without reverence
No entry to voices that seek to decorate
my temple with their dust
Let them knock,
but they shall not pass
This body is not a house for echoes
that do not echo truth

I sit inside myself,
wrapped in sacred flesh and sacred fire,
the altar of my being ignited
by the match of my own becoming
I am miracle,
I am oracle,
I am the question and the quiet

In the deep,
I met the divine—
not in temples of stone,
but in my breath,
in the beat between heartbeats,
in the radiant stillness
where the cosmos bows
to the sovereign that is me.

Let the world clamor.
I have found my music in the quiet.
I have heard the voice of God
in my own–

Copyright © 2025 Sherley Delia | All rights reserved.