He was a water sign.
You could tell by his ocean cool,
his balmy breeze,
his gently rolling tides.
He touched my skin like the sun and his kiss stung like sea salt on my chapped winter lips. 

But all seas see their storms.
He could be a riptide, pulling me deeper and deeper
until I was choking on salt water
and he was pushing me
further and further from what I knew. And he could come crashing down
like a tsunami,
ripping everything apart in his wake. 
But he was a Cancer.
Cancers carry our homes on our backs, so we choose to avoid
tumultuous weather
and brackish waves.
We prefer low tides.
So even when my northern winds
tore through his hot summer,
even when I snowed him in
and froze him out,
he kept his waters still,
not for my sake,
but for his.

The lights are off but I am shining;
A radiant, beaming, golden glow,
An ambient ray of love manifested. Excitement emanates from me,
Like tongues of flame, lapping
At the shadows in the hollow cheeks
Of this dark room.
I am smouldering;
I swear I could burn straight through
The mattress and through the floor, Down beneath the sandy Florida soil, And even the high water table
Couldn't put me out.
I'm on fire for you, burning for you.  This fire won't go out, it's been raging Scarlet and vermillion embroidered With gold since the day I met you.
Your liquor kisses seeped into
My black charcoal heart,
And the conflagration is consuming
Everything.

His name feels like silk
On freshly showered skin;
Soft and luxurious,
Swaddling in light warmth.
His voice rolls through my ears
Like distant quiet thunder,
Low and smooth as fresh cream-
But he purrs like a panther
When the lights go out.
He is black leather dripping in pearls,
Smelling of Italian cologne and chiffon.
Marble-chiseled face like stone,
With a jaw set like diamonds
In a platinum band.
His arms are like
High-powered assault rifles,
But his fingers are like soft rain
When he touches me in the dark.
His name is an ******
On Valentine's Day,
A champagne-tinged kiss
On New Year's Eve.
He is the embodiment of exhilaration,
Of fashion and fun,
Of money and ***,
Of power and glory,
Of love and valor,
His name is the only name
I want to scream in the dark,
And his name is the only name
I want to be mine.

There is nothing poetic
In the soul-crushing emptiness
I feel inside.
There is nothing beautiful
In closing my eyes
And never wanting them to open.
There is nothing romantic
In the dark, vast loneliness
That consumes my whole existence.
There is nothing poetic
About existing,
But not living.
There is no beauty in the dark.

This is my truth:
I fall too easily in love.
Like the tall thin golden grass,
I bend in the winds of admonishment.
The slightest touch will snap me,
The lightest breath will move me.
I sway toward whispered "I love you's"
Lean in toward sighed "I want you's"
Break at sobbed "I need you's."
I am a fool for heavy-lidded gazes
And lazy touches in the dark.
I slay myself over and over again,
I bleed out for empty words.
I cannot define myself outside
The context of the words you sing.
I have lost my identity somewhere
Between the cracks in your voice
When you beg me to come back home.
I can only stand the sound of my name
When you breathe it down my throat.
This is my truth:
I fall in love too easily.
I define myself by the terms set
By sad boys with empty hearts
And tired eyes.
I fall in love for convenience,
So as not to be alone.
My love for him was borne of a need
To sate the hunger I felt when you left.
In truth, I have always been yours,
And that is all I know how to be.

Lady of the Morning,
My northern guiding star,
I look to you when all is lost.
You alone know the violent tempo
At which my world turns,
And as my seas blacken and undulate,
Threatening to render me asunder,
You tether me to warmer sands.
My sister of a different breed,
We travel through this Hell together;
My ever-faithful constant,
As unwavering as a stone.

So profound was the stillness,
And heavy was the dark,
I could not rise and see the morning.
So piercing was the silence,
So clamorous was the void,
It pricked my ears like needles
And drew me near with siren song.
A shadow in the darkness,
I crept thoughtless towards the empty.
It wrapped me in clandestine,
And dragged me into the obscure.
A sleep from whence there is no wake,
A night without a dawn,
A place where twilight kisses dusk,
And all light dies in silence.