The priest came to the king,
bowed, and begged:
“Ban alcohol, sire
it’s destroying families, the whole ralm.”
The king said, without hesitation, “No.”
As the priest turned to leave,
the jester whispered:
“You should’ve asked while he was drinking.”
The priest nodded.
Too late for wisdom.

I am her *******.
I have clung to her hips like a worshipper
and knelt in the dark between her thighs.
I have drunk her sweat
until the salt burned my threads,
and I have learned her rhythm
how she sighs before she sins.
I have been the altar for her midnight prayers,
the veil for the tremor of her flesh
when the moon pressed its cold kiss there.
I have swallowed the bite of his teeth,
tasted the copper of his hunger,
and carried the scent of nights
she will deny with her lips
but never with her body.
I am the silk that trembled
when her fingers shook,
the lace that remembers more
than her mouth will speak.
And if you dare press me to your ear,
I will tell you
how she laughed when she came,
how she wept when she wanted more,
and how I still ache for her skin.

Who quenched the light in the eyes of the seeing,
and taught him that trust is a blade
that turns upon its bearer.

He who now seals his heart
was once a house with open doors to every wanderer,
until he gave them sight
and they repaid him with blindness.

May the darkness they planted in him
take root and choke them,
and may the spirits cry their names
through a night that shall never know dawn.

Aman

Come closer
my father once told me
that between my *******,
between my lips,
between my thighs,
lies a power without mercy.
I have learned to wield it like a blade.
My mind is the theatre,
my thoughts the stage where you are both
the hero and the sacrifice.
I will not simply kiss you
I will bind you,
thread your breath through mine
until you cannot remember
where you end and I begin.
I will lead you by the hand into velvet darkness,
make you believe it is safety,
then whisper the truth in your last moment of doubt:
I am the enchantress they warned you about,
the poison they served in a crystal glass.
They call me femme fatale,
but I am older than the name,
more ancient than fear.
I do not ****
I make you walk willingly
into your own beautiful ruin.
I blow a kiss, goodbye.

They asked me about the human soul.
I smiled,
and leaned close enough for them to feel my breath.
They say man is a microcosm
and the heavens the vast world.
But, love, they have never wandered your inner night.
The outer sky is a candle’s flame
fragile, flickering
while inside you,
I have sailed an endless sea of dark honey,
its tides made of dreams and pulse and breath.
The true vastness is in the chambers beneath your ribs,
where my hands have learned the maps
no star could chart.

She came to me beneath a crescent moon,
her hair perfumed with night jasmine,
her eyes heavy with the knowledge
that I was born of spells and dark milk.
I laid her down on the silk of my shadow.
The stars leaned close,
each one a witness to my mother’s prophecy
that my touch would burn without flame.
Her breath caught in the hollow of my throat.
I kissed her as the desert drinks rain:
slow at first,
then with the hunger of a century without water.
The witch’s blood sang in me,
chanting words no priest would dare to hear.
Her body opened like a forbidden garden,
and I,
its serpent and its angel,
entered with reverence and ruin.
When she cried out,
the night shivered.
Owls turned their heads,
the wind held its breath,
and the moon closed one eye in envy.

O She who rises from the womb of the sea,
crowned with foam and crowned with flame,
whose breath stirs the tides
and whose glance births blossoms from barren stone
Bearer of the golden girdle,
keeper of the wine of longing,
mother to the song that awakens the flesh,
and the dream that burns in the marrow.
Aphrodite, hear me.
Pour into my heart the wine of its desire,
and in the cup of that union,
let there be peace.