LISS S.

The Mask Behind the Altar

- A Poem by Artist Liss S.

I came to you with open hands,

Believing love lived in this place —

That underneath the Sunday smiles

Was something true, a holy face.

But masks have roots that run down deep,

And painted light can fool the eye.

I watched the politics of praise,

The careful art of the beautiful lie.

You wore your worship like a coat,

Pressed clean and hung for eyes to see.

But I was looking for a soul —

And found only the dark in thee.

It shatters something in the chest

When sacred turns to hollow ground,

When every voice that sang of grace

Was only echo, only sound.

I do not mourn you as you are —

I mourn the you I thought I knew.

I grieve the altar, not the stone.

I grieve the light I gave to you.

My faith is not a borrowed thing,

No costume sewn for Sunday's stage.

It breathes in me like morning prayer,

It burns in me like prophet's rage.

So I will walk from painted walls

And faces dressed in borrowed peace —

And find my God in honest dark,

Where masks dissolve and pretense cease.