They say it's dangerous when a woman’s tears stop
When her heart grows cold
When even on her own, she doesn’t feel alone
When she stops waiting for your reply
And doesn't look to you to bide her time
You thought the battle was over the first time you held her
It’ll take much more for this war to be over

A chilling ceasefire
As the home becomes a house once more

No water nor tea can quench an inhuman thirst.
That which one cannot have
becomes the object of obsession.
Delusional desires spiral,
the soul caves in,
and all that remains
is this lesson you were given.

You came back
Slinking from the shadows where you’d been left.
Pathetic creature, thirsty for anything-
willing to drink poison for the sake of a smile.

Bearing the scars of my teeth in your throat,
Why force me to suffer the guilt of being cruel to you?
My thorns cut you while I veiled you in gilded tendrils.
You writhed in agony with a smile on your face-
Delirious, lost, unaware of your situation.

I could have killed you in an instant.
But I let you go.
And you came back.

You asked me to tell you
About the angels and God.
You swore you could hear them—
You just couldn’t understand.
So I told you of Michael
And how he rose to the occasion
While fixing the front door that you broke in.
You warned me to lock the deadbolt from now on.
“Don’t just lock the ****.
Use the chain too, in case I break through.”
You never could trust.
Life left you abused.

Wherever you are now,
Know that someone is praying for you.

I could thank you for raising me,
For making me who I was meant to be,
But you hated that task.
It showed in your actions, your face—I didn’t have to ask.
Yet you did make me who I am today.
I will never know trust or love in a fatherly way.
Abandoned by my own, scorned by you,
You held my mother’s hands steady as she stabbed me through.
You are the wound I was never meant to have.

Did I ask to be put on trial,
before my eyes held their first tears,
as my soul swirled in the depths of nothingness—
a mixture of stardust and ash?

Had I begged for a challenge?
Was I cocky and bold?
Or was it all a punishment,
paying for crimes of old—
a past time, another life?

Did I demand to do it twice?

In the beginning, I felt so undeserving.
Is that why now I find peace so unnerving?

I wish I could tell you,
and have you understand—
that you are you,
and I am me.

We put so many years between us,
and in all that time, you’ve changed nothing,
while I’ve had to change everything about me.

Just please understand—
I am a locust,
and you are a tree.

I lay dormant for years,
by your side, if only by circumstance.
I shed my skin again and again,
while you sat still—
unrelenting in your ways,
unmoving through the seasons,
resistant to the surrounding decay.

I pray you understand,
as I only have this to say—
you and I were born in the same forest,
and you expected me to stay?