Pollen Offering

[Verse 1]
(a cappella)
Night-blooming jasmine on the wrought-iron gate post,
The air gets so thick that it's wearin' a ghost.
(beat drops)
The heat from the pavement is a physical thing,
a pressure that tells you what the next hour will bring.
Humidity clingin', a baptismal sheet,
The red clay under my nails is a prayer on repeat.
Just past eleven on a Tuesday in June,
the streetlight is buzzin' a half-broken tune, a hallelujah hum.
You taste like the ozone before a big storm,
my whole biology shiftin' to keep your hands warm.

[Chorus]
Yeah, this is that worship, that front-pew sermon,
That breath-on-the-glass, that holy-ghost-burnin'.
This ain't no religion you write in a book,
it's the pollen offering, the one look, the hook.

[Verse 2]
I map your expressions like tidal marsh charts,
phylogeny study of two broken parts.
You got that Gullah gold workin' its way through your diction,
a beautiful, livin', one-person contradiction.
You said, "Girl, you analyze God with a scalpel."
I said, "Yeah, but tonight I'm just here in the chapel."
Your laugh hit the quiet, a crack in the plaster,
the world's movin' slow but my heart's beatin' faster,
a panic response, a cellular plea,
for whatever this ecosystem is you're buildin' with me.

[Chorus]
Yeah, this is that worship, that front-pew sermon,
That breath-on-the-glass, that holy-ghost-burnin'.
This ain't no religion you write in a book,
it's the pollen offering, the one look, the hook.

[Bridge]
Forget the lab reports, the Latin declensions,
the footnotes and peer-reviewed tensions.
This is pluff mud salvation, a cellular fact,
there ain't no dissecting, no turnin' it back.

[Outro]
Yeah. The pollen offering.
That one look. That's the hook.