baptism recurs as trauma, angels watch me
seize
i have begun to pray again
i may feel cold but i am so warm
in my throat and bones, i have a fever
by the time my vagus nerve grew up my lungs were so full i found it impossible to scream
give me love without evasion and equivocation.
no one will just speak to me anymore

peril is not what i fear, i fear your death at such a scintilla of contentment
how can i love you for such distorted exaltation, if it is love at all
she has sunned only her heart, a weathered inamorata of gangrenous pallor
timid and stark naked in the swirling moonlight, blood viscous and ripe to drink, she speaks at last:
i cannot be your lover.
in retrospect, the affair was a whim; lithe but so bitter
love is not divine will, but tenacious valor
as i have learned
as anything

have i disrupted your cadence?