Heavy Prayers

Leather cracked at the spine,

pages thin as whispered secrets,

a hymnal pressed cold and thick

into my trembling palms.

Each leaf a folded prayer,

a pause in the chapel’s breath,

a weight not counted in ounces,

but in the silence of rooms

where loss sits heavy.

I hold it like a stone

too sharp to drop,

feeling the stories

pressed tight between its covers,

waiting for the sound

that never comes.