I'm tired of walking these parallel lines with you
Wondering if they'll ever cross again
I'm tired of moving on
Just to be drawn right back in
How is it fair
That I am doomed to fall for you
In a perpetual loop
A cycle that never ends
Why are you some labyrinth I can't escape?
I'm tired of loving you and losing you
But never really having you to begin

But gods, it really is just your voice
One phone call and the cycle starts again

I'd love to fully move on to someone new
But it always leads back to you
To what I wish we were
And what we never were
All the fear I felt for you
All the love you never returned
It seeps out around me
Like an aura
I can't untangle us from me

You're still like drugs to me
I think I'm sober
Then I hear your voice again
A hit and I'm hooked
A hit and I need another
And another and another
You're an addiction
That I can't get clean from
No matter how many times
I wash my hand of you
Something always lingers

I thought the butterflies in me
All shriveled up and died

But I feel caterpillars crawling inside

Butterfly season's approaching
And perhaps something in me awakens

Spread your wings and make me falter

Out of your chrysalis I beg
For butterflies to flutter again

Vampire kisses around my neck
Better than any jewel, brighter than any fire
Shades of purple, red and blue
Fading to yellow, greens and ***** dreams
Vampire kisses I wear like a necklace
Fingers trace them and I feel your lips
Evidence that they were here and there
A shame to hide something I hold so dear
Vampire kisses from my favorite ****** bat
I wear his love bites like an accessory

I am a woman– forced to say it like a curse
Because the moment we are discovered
Evil eyes of all sorts gaze upon us,
Questioning and curious.
        “Is her skin like porcelain?”
They refer to us as pithos, jars
Containers of the worst combinations
Of what Pandora released
Transporters of life and miasma
The toxic pollutant that comes
With giving and taking life.
        “Her virtue above all else– is she pure?”
We are *parthenos, with our coveted virginity
But once we are women we are spoiled
Once a jar has been opened and shattered
It can never become pristine and new again
Only lay in wait to crumble and expire.
        “Her hair, is it soft like satin?”
They who clamber out from our wombs,
Refer to us as stains of shame and burden
They call us impure and unclean when we bleed
A pollutant when we birth new life
Yet they are praised when they forsake ours.
        “Do her eyes shine like gems?”
We are like treasure, like silk and gold
When we are not yet broken, we are something desired
They say we are like pearls and gems; silk and gold
But these comparisons are not compliments– they are currencies
The closest they can get to shelving us, marketed to be sold
        “Is she beautiful?”
Be lovely like Aphrodite with unparalleled beauty
Be chaste as Athena and Artemis, a monarch like Hestia and Hera
Be obedient or become like Pandora and bring us to ruin
We are told to be and not be pieces of so many others,
That we can’t remember how to simply be ourselves.
        “Become unbreakable.”

.

When I was given life
I was born into this world all alone
There was no mother or father to greet my arrival
There were no smiles or cheers of joy
No warm welcomes into life

From my first breath of life I learned
That in this world my beauty is my worth
If I am not desirable, I am nothing
I am beautiful because I must be.

Before there was me the world was glimmerless
It hadn’t yet learned to shine
I knew someone had to teach it
To cherish,  adore and desire
To caress, feel and yearn
To love the beauty in between the little things

I always chased that feeling to hold as my own
And everybody has chastised me
I’m the harlot of your stories–
But all I’ve ever been is a lover of love
And I chose love and love again,
But love never chooses me back.

I used to wage wars over my body
They bathed themselves in blood to win me
But no one ever asked “Aphrodite, what is it you want?”
Instead they gave me away,
Like I was theirs to give.

I know love is violent
Perhaps I made that way
Because doesn’t blood look so pretty
When it is spilled for passion?
After all it was my blood
That painted all the roses red.