She raises her arm,
not in benediction,
but in the small rebellion
of capturing her own face
beneath the marbled theater of eternity.

Above her,
angels spill from drapery like loosened thoughts,
a pope extends his stone hand
in blessing or command—
who can tell anymore?
Even in stillness,
the gesture feels suspect.

The air is thick with centuries:
candles gutter,
gold leaf shimmers,
and the hush is not holy
but heavy—
like a silence trained to hide its wounds.

Faith was meant to be a door flung open,
a table where all might gather.
Instead, it became
a locked room,
its key guarded by men
who mistook power for grace,
and covered their sins
with vestments too ornate to touch.

Her phone, black as a psalm unsung,
catches her face where the saints cannot.
No angel stoops to cradle her doubt;
no Madonna reaches from the niche.
The statues are beautiful, yes—
but beauty can also be complicit,
a veil too finely woven
to let the cries through.

How many voices pressed
against these walls in vain?
How many children prayed
to be seen,
only to be folded into the architecture of silence?

She presses the shutter.
It is not worship,
but witness—
a fragile liturgy of selfhood
against a cathedral that claims eternity.

And in that instant,
her image lingers among the saints,
her living skin
a testament more holy
than marble ever dared to be.