Cathedral

I spread my arms and feel the rush
Of pounding blood
Through my transept,
And arch—
Bend over backwards for you
To see through to
My rose windows
Stained with emotions and memories
(—Mysterious blues that you still don’t
Understand the chemical nature of—)
That shed light on
The inside,
Holding secrets within
My syn-apse-s
As you turn back towards my facade,
Which is gilded, but still stone beneath,
And desperately in need of buttresses—
External supports
To keep from crumbling,
But you’re just a tourist,
And you have no intention
Of building those.

This is my 24th poem for National Poetry Writing Month 2014. I learned about cathedrals in my French History class, and again (same semester) in my foundations of art class in the architecture chapter. This was partly inspired by a prompt to write about masonry. I have a lot of architecture terms here. Some are obvious, some are less obvious. (But if you know what they are, the poem makes more sense.) I have some fun experimental punctuation. Yay, free verse.