When you pray
be overcome by the power of the words
so that everything else disappears
and it’s just you at your shrine
with the God looking on.

Speak your words like a lover
seducing the divine
and know that they are not empty sounds
but every one of them is full of myths.

When you say hail Bromios,
mean that night when you screamed as loud as you could
and didn’t care what your neighbors thought.
Staphylos,
the skin of the grape between your teeth.
Soter,
the pain and your tears
falling down.

Hold the aromas of his invocation in your mouth
like wafts of wine poured from the bottle,
like a damp forest late at night,
like the smoke of a fine cigarette after sex.

And then let it out.

Give it to him.

Offer everything inside you up to the God
– the good and the bad, the pain and the joy –
in a single blast of euphoric love,
for you are his and all you have belongs to him.

Cry “Io evohe!” like the maenads of old
and mean it with all your heart.

That is how you pray.