The stars are burning
Always burning

I sigh
Paradise on my lips
Heaven in your eyes

I dream of moonlight
And call it love

“I want to be a good man”
He tells you with eyes like a summer storm
All roaring thunder and howling wind
“Help me be a good man”
And so you help him

You lead him to the well
You show him how to drink
And you think this is love
You think this is how it grows

“I want to be a good man”
He tells you with eyes like a summer storm
All shadowed intent and a flash of warning
“Help me be a good man”
But you don’t want to help him anymore

You lead him to the well
Try to leave as he forces you to stay
Watch as the blood washes from his hands
And you think this is love
This is how it wilts

“I want to be a good man”
He looks at you and his eyes are red
You’ve long since adjusted to their madness
“Help me be a good man”
But you won’t help him anymore

You lead him to the well
Push him in when his back is turned
Watch him drown as he reaches upwards  
And you think this is love
This is how it returns to you

I cracked open your chest
and crawled inside
Trying to get your heart beating again
falling into a dead man's arms
helped me understand
That trying to make a home - out of empty skin
would leave me with nothing
but blood-stained hands that would never scrub clean.
These same hands that will shake
as I beg for forgiveness to all those who come after me-
a quiet confession to all the girls I couldn't save.
And the girl before me,
with the same shaking hands and dead eyes.
She wept for you
and for me
an angel crying before the devil.
And we will seek absolution before God
we will count our sins and say our 100 Hail Marys
our praise be to him.
In an attempt to atone for the sin-
and rid our souls of only the grief,
a dead man can leave.

The truth was painful, so you buried it
Dug a hole into the earth six feet deep
Nestled it right beside your childhood
Threw some dirt upon its coffin and fashioned a crude cross out of bones and teeth

In death, Truth is just as ugly as it was in life
But you feel safe with it out of sight
You loosen the fist you weren’t aware you were making
You tend to the ****** red crescents from where they’re branded into your palm
You say a few words but what words are left when they’re buried below your feet?

You tell yourself it was a kindness
You swear to yourself that it was a means to an end
But there was no justice when you held its life in your hands
No mercy when you buried your fangs in it’s heart

You convince yourself that it was an act of love
“The truth is painful” and “the world is ugly”
Without the truth, you believe maybe there’s still some beauty in the world
Can convince yourself that the blood red rose on an unmarked grave is a sign you were right

Six feet under, Reality is weeping.

In this life time he loves me

And Icarus never laid eyes upon Apollo’s grace.

In this life time he loves me 

And Persephone eats from the pomegranate with a steady hand.

In this life time he loves me

And Achilles holds Patroclus without the knowledge of loss.

In this life time he loves me not 

And I ache for gods who do not ache for me.

Here's the thing
I loved him first
I really did - boldly, undoubtedly (fearfully)
I loved him with a piece of me I didn't know I had

Here's the other thing
Maybe he loved me back (he did)
Maybe he wasn't all sunset smiles and blue summer eyes
But maybe we could have been happy

But the truth is that we didn't-
We weren't-
We never will-

I have seen his face in a thousand sunsets
Met his eyes in a thousand skies
And while I've come to the realization of living  without him,
That old scar on my chest still bleeds (and bleeds and bleeds)

The thing about the unrequited
The thing about the unfulfilled
Is that it almost would have been better to have crashed and burned
Maybe I wouldn't miss him then