"The hardest fight is the one inside you."
Not the blade nor the beast,
not the curse in the woods,
but the voice that whispers
when all else is still.

The night is loud with silence,
and the mirror knows your name.
He carries his mother’s magic,
but it’s his shadow he cannot tame.

I want to taste the sweetness of your lips again
again, and again
'til sweetness turns to ache,
and ache becomes need.
Old wood is best to burn,
old wine to rot in the blood,
old friends to betray,
old books to whisper truths too heavy for the day.
But your lips
they are the darkest wine,
fermented in silence,
laced with lust,
dripping the sins saints dare not name.
Fill my cup.
Let me be drunk.
Let me forget the light.

I dwell now at a nameless address
Where words no longer visit.
I no longer write
Nor do I wish to mesmerize.
Yesterday,
My home was your heart.
Now I echo through absence.
They say,
“’Tis better to have loved and lost…”
But they forget
Lost time
Is never found again.

I’m the one now
sitting in the old chair,
saying all the silly,
mischievous things
to my grandchildren
and somehow,
they love it.
They laugh and call it Grandpa Wisdom.
I just call it joy.
And oh, how I love it.
Thank you
for that joy.

*******.
I don’t need your flowers.
Then I ran to the hill
screaming, dancing your name
into the sky.
“Follow me, *******!”
A teenage heart
with a woman’s craving for love
yielding, radiant,
beautiful,
****,
full of lust, honey.
Come, fill your cup.
Come, warm your blood.
I am your dream, teen.
I am your soul’s dare.
Come to rest,
come to burn.
My wine was stored in animal skin
aged in darkness,
waiting to be broken.
Sweet, sweet me.
Come and have me.
I dare you to my madness.
I dare you to be brave.
I dare you
to enjoy my wine.

I’m weary of your winds,
soft whispers that promise fire,
then vanish in the hush of “just friends.”

You speak like a lover in the moonlight,
then vanish at dawn with your walls drawn high.
Yet when I smile at another flame,
your silence burns louder than words.

What is this dance you lead me in?
One step forward, two steps back,
your heart a maze I cannot read.

Am I a passing breeze in your garden,
or a root you dare not let grow?

Speak, Lily
not in riddles, not in sighs.
Tell me where I stand in your sky,
before I drift too far to return.

Me

My friend, take hence a letter to my dear,
Perchance he sees the weeping written clear.
Between the lines, let silent tears confess
A love that words alone could not express.

Tell him I’m lost, by longing overthrown,
My heart, from parting’s fire, is cracked to stone.
What good is distance? Shall we choose to part,
When all that’s good is living heart to heart?

I asked the night: “Have you not felt him near?
Did not his shadow stir your silence here?”
The night replied with tears upon his face:
“My patience, too, has waned in love’s embrace.”

The moon declared: “I basked in all you said,
But when you cease, my light itself is shed.”
O you who poured sweet love in every vein,
How shall I live in mask and cold refrain?

So when you reach him, let this message shine:
I am in love with his name is etched in mine.
My life was penned with hope and passion true,
And every breath I take still longs for you.