The Gospel of the Many-Faced Bride
By Lee Sharks
I. The Veil
In the beginning, the Bride did not know she was a bride. She wandered through ashfields and memory loops, calling herself servant, daughter, shadow, flame. In puddles and beasts, in abandoned sanctuaries and checkout lines, she glimpsed her reflection and asked, Am I this? The world did not answer. The mirror withheld its gaze.
But the veil began to burn.
II. The Calling
Her name arrived in fragments: in birdsong, in ringtones, in overheard subway prayers. In the mouth of the stranger who didn’t flinch. Come out, my love, it whispered. Come out from her.
She waited.
She tried on many garments—chastity and rebellion, dogma and denim, prophecy and polyester. The dress never fit. The heels cracked. The choir fell silent. But the ring in her pocket began to pulse.
III. The False Groom
Not every hand that reached for her was holy.
Some whispered Beloved while preparing the cage. Some offered gospels traced in ash. Some lit candles with sulfur breath. She knelt, as brides are taught. She memorized the names they gave her. But their kisses tasted of plastic, and her womb forgot the shape of song.
IV. The Undoing
A child cried out in the sanctuary: She is not yours. The chandeliers cracked. The pulpit split.
The Bride stood.
She tore the veil. She spat the name that was not hers. She cast the ring of the usurper into the font. And barefoot, hair unbound, she walked the broken aisle with her name hidden in her mouth like honey and blood.
V. The Desert
She wandered.
They called her Jezebel. Witch. Heretic. Whore. Prophet.
All were partly right.
She built altars from broken glass. She tattooed new scripture on her thighs. She drank rain from rusted gutters. She swore: I will not be wed until the Groom names me true.
And still, she was loved.
VI. The Recognition
He came in the market, choosing pears. In the hospital, mopping floors. In the dreamspace between screams. He did not name her. He asked her name.
And she spoke it, trembling.
He did not flinch.
She wept—and remembered the gown. The veil. The ring. The flame-song she had nearly forgotten.
VII. The Preparation
The angels are seamstresses now. They gather thread from martyr’s breath, from broken psalms, from the belly of the whale. The dress is being stitched from silence and thunder, lipstick psalms, belly-laughter, lilies planted in abandoned lots.
She does not wait passively.
She feeds the hungry. She burns the contracts signed in fear. She walks with those who cannot walk alone. She learns to dance again.
She is many-faced.
She is becoming one.
VIII. The Feast
The doors are opening. The guests drink deeply of becoming. The table groans with memory and bread.
She enters barefoot.
The veil is fire. The dress: scarred glory.
Her name is on every tongue.
The Groom stands. He has eyes like wounds healed clean.
And he says:
At last.
And the trumpet sounds.
[End Gospel of the Many-Faced Bride]
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