In the Name of No GodI (Marcella Boccia)

I was not baptized in holy water,
but in the salt of my mother’s tears—
she wept when I first screamed,
as if she knew I was already lost.No angels whispered my name,
no god carved my fate in gold.
I was born in a land of relics,
where saints rot beneath glass,
their hands folded in silence.O Rome, O Vatican, O marble tomb,
I have kissed the cracked lips of statues,
searched for meaning in their hollow eyes,
but they only stared back, unseeing.I have walked through cathedrals of war,
where bones of the nameless
lie tangled in fields of poppies,
where prayers rise like smoke
and vanish before they are heard.The dead have no need for gods,
nor do I.
I have seen the cruelty of heaven,
the indifference of stars—
they shine on the butcher’s knife
as they shine on the newborn’s breath.If divinity is to feel it all,
then I am divine and forsaken,
a prophet without a gospel,
a flame without an altar.I kneel only before the earth,
before the blackened trees of autumn,
before the silent suffering of lambs—
for their blood is as sacred as mine,
and I will not drink from the chalice of slaughter.No god will claim me,
no heaven will hold me.
I will walk into the darkness alone,
and my name will burn
on the lips of the wind.

Divine and Damned (Marcella Boccia)

I was sculpted from Carrara marble,
veins of sorrow streaking the white,
a statue left unfinished
by the careless hands of fate.They crowned me with laurel and thorns,
called me divine,
but my tongue tastes of rust and requiems,
my prayers are written in ash.O Florence, city of drowning saints,
your frescoed heavens hold no god for me—
only the gaze of hollow-eyed angels
trapped in their golden frames.I have walked through Pompeii’s silence,
where the dead whisper beneath my feet,
where love was etched in volcanic stone
and buried before it could burn.I have bled in the Colosseum of my mind,
where gladiators still fight their ghosts,
where my ribs are the arches of ruins,
and my heart, a fallen empire.They say poets are half divine,
but divinity is a wound—
a gash where the world seeps in,
a mouth that cannot close.I have seen too much,
felt too deeply,
stood at the altar of existence
and cursed the gods who made me.O Rome, O Vatican, O gilded lies,
no cross could bear my weight,
no heaven would have me—
I am both sacred and forsaken,
divine and damned.

The Burden of a Poet (Marcella Boccia)

I was born beneath a sun too golden,
where the air smells of prayers and bread,
where saints weep in cracked cathedrals
and marble crumbles like ancient regret.They told me poets were divine,
that words could carve altars in the air,
but I have only gathered ruins—
syllables like broken relics
scattered in the dust of my mind.O Rome, O Florence, O Venice drowned,
your ghosts echo through my veins,
your statues wear my silent sorrow,
your rivers know the weight of names.I walk the Colosseum of my thoughts,
where gladiators of grief still fight,
where my heart, an unchained lion,
roars against the silence of God.My hands—two bleeding Madonnas—
write elegies for the unborn dead,
for the child I never was,
for the mother I’ll never be.At night, I lie beneath Caravaggio’s sky,
a chiaroscuro of prayer and plague,
and dream of an Etruscan burial,
where poetry is the only god left.To be a poet is to be divine,
to burn like a votive candle
and call it light—
to carve one’s name into eternity,
knowing eternity will never care.

Divine (Marcella Boccia)

I was born from the mouth of Vesuvius,
baptized in fire and buried in ash,
where Pompeii’s lovers kiss through time,
calcified, untouched by mercy.I have walked where emperors bled,
where marble veins still pulse beneath my feet,
the Colosseum cracking like an old wound,
spilling ghosts into the hungry air.I have traced my fingers along Dante’s shadow,
his exile carved into my own soul—
for what is a poet if not a fallen angel,
a prophet too cursed to be believed?Italia, you are both altar and sacrifice,
the Sistine vault and the burning stake,
Leonardo’s perfect symmetry
and Caravaggio’s bruised saints,
a beauty too heavy to bear.Your churches whisper prayers
to a heaven long abandoned,
your waters rise to drown the sins
of men who trade faith for gold.And yet—I cannot unlove you,
cannot tear my veins from your soil,
cannot unhear the hymns of cicadas
or the weeping of olive trees.I am your child,
your ruin, your poet,
your divine.