The charred skin peels off to reveal tidings of the end
Come forth, loved one, let us make an emend
My pretence sounds like poetry but I whisper it through rain
The images pitter-patter into dreams I will not deign
Then the cold drops burn my fingers
And the place where your fevered kiss malingers
She’s blooming in the sunlight,
moonlight, glimmering like seaside salt.
Melting in her arms as if
we were honeycomb on toast.
Sticky kisses, curls and freckles,
never hungry, bless your soul.
It's the rose flavour in the water
that somehow brings my breath to halt.
Why do I hurt myself so?
Beat myself to your own drum,
to which I march in vapid squalor.
I soldier on, step lead and glum.
Why do I rescind my valor,
my misery worn on your tongue.
I watch it dig up old wounds, shallow,
deliver my heart to a loaded gun.
Anew your smile triggers my scorn,
ere had I hoped my thoughts would hallow.
I thought this fear was long since shorn,
But it's ingrown deep, to my bone marrow.
I feel an itching sense of ruin
as if everything will go wrong.
Like a black cat on a dead man's chair,
I disregard where I belong.
I feel an uninvited presence
of imminent, unknown despair.
Yet I've no hints of what will tumble.
I only know, somehow, I'll break.
What's it worth to wish for
a lover singing in the garden,
when your heart is trained forever
on all the shadows of the house.
You're the spider, pretend lover,
Dye me pink when my blood runs dark.
Paint red my cheeks that slowly hollow;
Drink me, neglect me, tear me apart.
String my wrists up where your illusion
can make-believe his full control,
You're webbed so deep into delusion
you've made saints of what sinners brought.
Here you play house with ceilings burning,
cat-and-mouse to where it's found no more,
your sense of self and your sense of loving
have warped and wrapped and worn your core.
