I Simply Quit

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

for Lucifer in Sandman

I do not rebel.
There was no thunder
when I left—only
the slow unraveling
of light behind me,
like thread pulled from
an old barong.

No war. No fire.
Just the hush
of wings folding themselves
into silence.

Heaven did not
ask for love.
It asked for
the posture of it—
knees bent on marble,
eyes lowered
like servants in old churches
who polish
what they do not
believe in.

Worship was never
a hymn. It was
obedience
in a language I forgot
how to speak.

And so
I removed the crown
they nailed
to my head,
left it
on the step
beside the lilies,
still wet
with the dew
of borrowed divinity.

No speeches.
No storm.
Only
the sound
of my own feet
on cloudstone,
walking away
from gold
that no longer glowed.

This is not rebellion.
I did not throw
a single flame.
I simply
left—
the way some men
leave the altar
before the bride
enters,
the way some angels
look at perfection
and think:
there must be more
than this.