I don’t kneel for God.

I kneel for the shape of your approval—

the way a man kneels

when he mistakes a collar

for a crown.

---

Gold doesn’t shine.

It judges.

And silence is expensive.

---

I learned to breathe in borrowed rooms,

where praise is perfume, guilt is bloom;

to smile like marble taught my face

the discipline of dying grace.

Your kindness—measured like a drug—

a velvet tax, a tender shrug;

it warms the skin, then cools the bone,

so I confuse your cold with home.

I carry “please” like sacred wine,

decant my will till it turns fine;

my spine becomes a quiet stair—

for you to walk without a care.

The mirror calls me “well-behaved”,

a living statue newly shaved;

I gleam in linen, pale and clean—

a servant dressed to not be seen.

And still my heart, that stubborn knife,

keeps carving “mine” into my life—

not yours…

but into what I’ll never be:

a man unowned, a man set free.

---

I don’t submit

because I’m small—

I submit

so I don’t fall.

---

Servant’s pleasure—velvet creed,

I learn to vanish when you breathe.

I hold your silence like a throne,

and call your coldness “coming home.”

Servant’s pleasure—golden vow,

I bow so well I’m holy now.

---

Your compliments are white-gloved blades,

they cut so clean they look like praise.

You call me “good” the way one blesses

a candle drowning in its wax.

I watch you smile—an altar flame—

and feel my name become your name;

a borrowed hymn, a rented pulse,

a private hunger in a cult.

My jealousy wears choir robes,

it prays in teeth, it kneels in throats.

I hate the air that isn’t yours—

then choke on that, and beg for more.

I polish hours till they shine,

turn time itself to discipline;

I am the clock you never wind—

still I obey, still I begin.

---

Say “stay,”

and I am stone.

Say “mine,”

and I come home.

---

Servant’s pleasure—velvet law,

a rosary of yes and awe.

I trade my spine for royal peace,

and call the quiet “my release.”

Servant’s pleasure—sugar rot,

I starve so well it looks like God.

I wear your absence like a ring—

and make my emptiness a thing.

---

Tell me—

is this a cage I built for you…

or a church I built to hide in?

I forged the bars from “maybe”

and hammered “please” into my skin.

I made devotion into metal—

and called it discipline.

Sometimes you touch my head

like blessing a faithful pet…

…and I feel holy.

…and I taste regret.

---

No bruises.

No scandal.

Only manners.

No screams.

No chaos.

Only order.

SERVANT.

SERVANT.

SERVANT.

PLEASURE.

---

Servant’s pleasure—velvet law,

I shine for you and lose my core.

I kneel so long I forget my height—

and call it love, and call it right.

Servant’s pleasure—final art,

a perfect smile, a starving heart.

If I am yours, then ruin me—

but ruin me… aristocratically.

Servant’s pleasure—silver thread,

I stitch my “self” until it’s dead.

I die in silk, I live in need—

your sweetest sin…

your cleanest bleed.

---

One day I’ll leave.

Not in anger.

Not in grief.

Just quietly—

the way a servant closes doors…

so the house can pretend

it never needed him to breathe.

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