Our fingers,
Interlocked.
You glance at me with fire.
I felt the sand
Of all those years,
And your eyes were the sea.

I don't always look for the shoreline,
But years have passed,
And all I could see was crisp fields.

There is not always stars.
The small I-do's we said that night,
We're not done
Under a blanket of moonlight.
We did not sit by a fire
Holding love in our bones,
Mending.
We did not walk on a beach,
Toes in the sand,
Love at first sight.
You did not pull me in and kiss me.
We didn't even say much.
But it was beauty,
The way you smiled at me when
I emerged in your doorway,
With a dollar store rose of apology.
The way you rigidly
Imperfectly hugged me.
In sticky sweet serenity.

There will be a day you feel your soul
Being forced up your throat,

Don't speak those words
For it might escape.

Tell yourself not
To let's those tears out,
Not out of fear of sight
But from fear of seeing with empty caves, once your cheeks have dried.

When you begin to
Suffocate,
Place you're hand over your heat
And feel it bleeding.

I was eaten away
By a monster inside of me.
It feeds on the feelings of
Shame.
It feeds on the
Fears I have.

When I look it in the face and I tell it
No.
I am better than this,
It knows all the right words to tell me
I am nothing.

It reminds me
I have felt the greed of too many men as they steal,
Yet tell me I am not enough.
That I walk down hallways,
Embarrassed to be standing,
To be walking,
To be seen by the wit of cruel souls.
That I believe the taunts
Before accepting the compliments.
That every night when I go to sleep
I will not rest.
That I will give up on trying and lye Awake
Tired and unable
Dangling off the edge of my bed.
Letting the cold slip into sheets that Were once
So warm.
It reminds me that I know better
Than to feel such naïve elation.

I have seen the guilt
Arise in the eyes of the people I love.
As they question where they went Wrong.
I stand before them
Exposed,
They preach, keep trying.
And I no longer have the will to Confess the comfort
I feel
When I give up,
Because my monsters
Are so friendly when they tell me
I'm better off in their company.

And then it was daylight.
You lay next to me still sleeping,
The crisp scent of your everlasting
Youth
Dwelled in the air.

Oh how the night
Had sung.
The stars came to us
Kissed your fingertips,
Your hands.
Your hair.

We grew together,
Glowing red like fire.

Next to me you awoke.
A drop of sea
Formed,
In the corner of your green eyes
And fell
Down to the earth.
Small rivers on your face.
You let go of the ash
You keep.
The masks you wore
Are no longer yours.

I could see the happiness bloom in your soul.
Oh the happiness,
Oh the small
Gifts
You give to the heavens.

Through the white screen door,
Down broken steps of burned bark
A rusty swing set, red
Buried in Autumn.

Years passed since I sat,
In thick plastic seats
Now are weathered and cracked.

The vines of snakes
Hug the legs, winding and twisting.

Ripe
Sticky summer in-capsuled in growing memories
Of all the years I sat
And picked away at the berries.
At the end of the succulent days,
My fingers, stained
Red.