Forget crosses, bleached bibles, many-eyed angels on Christmas trees—
this is my most religious accessory:
the feeling of a congregation watching me
as I unravel, spilling all my griefs
for everyone to see, voluptuous and streaming
from the spiritual abscess clinging, dark, to some light-deprived organ—
my heart, stomach, spleen, sticky with impious dreams—
my indecorum excused by the setting,
the license afforded for emotional outbursts
in a chapel, with a painted Christus unblinking at me.
I say, “Make of me a believer,” and again,
“Make of me a believer, and I will submit
and surrender, and all my self-loathing
will burn on an altar until it incenses me,”
and I wish there were a hammer, a nail,
to make physical what I feel—
skin pierced and my insides pouring out, weeping,
and I want the hole bigger, the blood more abundant,
to lessen the barriers between myself and others,
to show myself broken open by God,
with blood and tears, streaming.
Make of me a believer, I say in a discordant choir,
that is myself and the people in pews who nod, sighing, crying—
Make of me a believer. I am yours anyway.
Make of me a believer. Let me sing forever.
Accessory
By Micah Cozzens
About Micah Cozzens
Micah Cozzens graduated with a PhD in Creative Writing from Ohio University in 2024. Her work has appeared in Irreantum, Segullah, Jersey Devil Review, and Time of Singing magazines. She is also a finalist for the Fugue annual poetry prize. Her first full length poetry collection, titled Emily and Other Poems, is expected in 2026 from By Common Consent press. She is cohost of the Over/Poetry podcast. When not writing, she enjoys teaching, spending time with her five nephews and niece, and watching bad reality television.