"Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
You know this rhyme, have heard it prior
But now, hear this - my verse to mirror.

A foolish child, to do such wrong
And string your minions, too, along
Your violent acts, and words of spite
Have earned you this most sorry plight.

The shots were fired, stakes were claimed
With such conviction, smeared my name.
And all for what? So I would leave?
Ah, what a pretty web you weave.

A novice, true, but you did try;
I'm twice as cunning, thrice as sly.
Your dues unpaid, and still you reached
So, let me practice what I preach.

The coven black has since convened
(Your kind is not the first we've seen),  
Determined what the price shall be
You know your crimes, as well as we.  

The modern witch is not betrayed.
What reckoning we'll see this day!
A sickened child, a woman not
Let's mind your place, as you forgot.

You think the eye I've turned was blind?
That I'd not return your work in kind?
Behold, my dear, the rule of three
All that, with nerve, you've done to me

Will come back now, and triply well
In this, my carnival of hell
You've paid admission, in advance
Forfeited hope of second chance.

There is no hiding, though I'm gone.
But I'll allow your victory song.
I possess, you see, your DNA.
And so the distance does not weigh.

The balance calls for consequence,
So new endeavors now commence.
Step right up, come right this way!
You've stirred a game, and now we'll play.

Your god is dead, but devils live
And just when there's no more to give
Again I'll strike, my darkest work
And still again, until you've learned.

Do you believe in magick, girl?
I'll let you peek our secret world.
We know no limits, no restraint;
The power here, not for the faint.
  
No mercy here, nor bargains made;
Your debt to us will soon be paid.
You still may beg, but per decree
Blood calls for blood.

So mote it be.

Trouble in a suitjacket,
Tailored as his words were
When he cornered me
That night.

And here I thought
Horoscopes
Were all but *******,
Yet I met him
Exactly where
That ******* article
Said I would.

I started to pray.

He started to prey.

Darkness in his eyes,
Danger on his lips,
Destruction in his mind.
Hell's very finest,
Promising to overthrow
My sworn solitude for
This new year.

Come Friday night,
We step beneath
The world,
Into romance infernal,
As my resolve
Goes up
In flames.

Father,
Forgive me now.
For I know
That I will sin.

She learned to dance.

Frivolous tutus and
Twinkling tights
Soft pink slippers
On hardwood floors,
Young, dear, unadulterated.
The centerpiece
Of a music box.  

A poor melody,
Indeed,
Does reality play.  

Pirouettes don’t show potential.
Relevés don’t yield results.
Interest doesn’t pay interest.
Submission for survival.

Piercings…poles…provocative.
Glittering ensembles,
Sensuality in smoke,
The scandal of skin.

Little ballerina,
Her audience awaits.
No time to be shy.
They want her,
And that
Is what she always wanted.

She learned to dance.

Though she has your number,
She does not call.
Though she knows where to find you,
She does not come.
Though she knows that you try,
She does not care.

She is indifferent.
She is blind.
She is half-hearted.

She leaves you hanging,
Leaves you wanting,
Leaves you unsatisfied,
And you want her.


Chasing after someone who won't
Spare you the time of day,
Craftily eluding someone
Who would give you the world.  

She is The Other Girl.  

The Girl good enough to ****,
But not good enough to date.
Not who you would hold at night,
Or hold in thought for more than seconds,
But who you might wander to
When all else has failed.
A solid backup,
But never first choice.

She is temporary.
She is background.
She is white noise.

A quick fix,
A rushing high,
A biting jolt
Just strong enough
To carry you over
Until your eye captures
Something beyond Her.  

Your moments together are brief,
Fleeting.
Disposable to you,
Consequential to Her.

You return again and again
Because She cares,
And She is fool enough
To let you.
If only you could find Her,
In anyone but Her.
If only She did not wait
For what will never come.

If only the world turned
The other way.
If only the sun rose in the west,
And set in the east.
If only the tides
Pulled the moon,
And common sense
Were a louder guide
Than the human heart.

If only reality,
Were not reality.

But that's not how the story goes.

Is it?

Don't you know
I adore you?

Not so much as a whole
Because really you are a half,
My better half,
That fifty (or so) percent
That I was missing
Without quite knowing
(Or seeming to need),
But more so as
Segments,
Fragments,
Pieces,
Each making up
The whole half
Of who you are.

The tiny, least of all insignificant
Compartments
That comprise you,
Little details painting
A bigger picture,
A work I couldn't
Even have dreamt
In my most restless,
Vivid, unconscious state,
Much less imagined that
I would lay
My eyes
And hands
And heart on.

Little things.

Your hands running
Through your hair
As you speak to me,
The way you send
My mind running every day
With thoughts of you,
The way you sent
My heart running
The day I met you,
When I knew, somehow,
Who and what you were,
Who and what we would be,
Even as everything else
Faded away around us
So that I could see only you.
Where my scope had been
So broad before,
Now narrowed
And tailored
To the emotion of your eyes
And the honey of your voice
And the warmth of your touch,
All betraying you as a man
Hurt so many times,
So deeply,
So ruthlessly,
So relentlessly,
That opening up again
Was your only option,
With what left to lose?

Significant things.

Your eyes upon me
With emotions I cannot read,
Only speculate,
While you observe me as though
I am the only woman
You have ever had, ever known,
Though I know you have had
And known many
Before me.
You look at me as though
I had come to save you,
When I am no superhero
Like the ones in your comics,
And could never aspire to be,
But rather, a normal citizen,
Come to believe in you, to
Hold you, to
Care for you, to
Show you the sort of
Gentleness and compassion
That you have been so starved for,
That comes so naturally to me
When you are in my presence.

Passionate things.

Your hands in my hair
And lips at my ear,
Hot breath raining
Seduction and fire,
Scandalous promises
And blatant temptation
Upon me,
Endearing only falling
From your mouth.

Your body and mouth
Against mine
In a fever
In a thirst
In a heat
We cannot seem
To quell,
The only sickness
For which there is
And
For which I want
No cure,
Tormenting me
In beautiful, twisted ways,
Turning wrought iron
Into tarnished silver,
Dimmed to the rest
Of the world
But just beautiful
Enough for you.

The things you have done to me
I cannot speak of.
The things you are doing to me still
I cannot run from.

God help me,
I am so enamored
That control is beyond me
And sense is without me
And a fire whose embers
Were all but doused,
Consumes me,
Is everything I am.

What was first instinct to run
Is now a reflex to stay.

There is something
About a man
Who changes everything
By staying exactly the same,
Whose mere presence,
Still as water,
Shatters your reality
And opens a chasm
In your world
Of proportions you never
Believed in,
Much less expected.
A deep fissure
Not to be filled,
But for the two of you
To jump in together,
Knowing that neither one
Will come out without the other.

There is something about a man
Who almost wasn't yours.
And that you somehow are allowed to hope
Will always be.

There is something about a man.

Something about mine.

"I don't want you anymore."

"I don't love you anymore."

"It's YOUR fault that we're here. YOUR fault."

"Someone else can deal with your crazy."*

Do you remember saying those words to me?

Because I do.

Despite my efforts to forget,
I hear them always,
Resonating,
Still echoing within
The confines of my mind
Months later,
After I ran from
And pushed off
And drank to
And finally faced
The kind of pain
We only imagine we can experience
Until it becomes that brutal
And humbling reality.

Do you remember cutting into me
With your careless words
And malicious intent
To deflect responsibility,
To blame it on me
That what had been hit head-on
And swerved around
And left on the side of the road to die
Was finally dead?

Because I remember feeling them,
Ripping at the tendons of my heart
Hollowing out the center of my being
Until I finally knew what it was like
To be a shell along the shore,
An article of emptiness
Aching for someone to pick me up
And put me to their ear,
So they might listen to
The cresting and falling waves
Of my suffering.

And do you, by chance,
Remember
The thanklessness with which
You returned my belongings
(But not the wasted two and a half years),
The blankness with which
You looked at me,
As if you hadn't taken the last thing
I had had to give,
As if you hadn't walked me to hell and back
With your insecurities
And irrational fears
And low self-esteem,
As if you hadn't broken
My indomitable spirit
Over and over again,
Until I thought I might finally
Be left with nothing?

Because I do.

Do you remember that little voice
In the back of your mind
That tried to be heard
As you spat those hateful words at me,
As you threw away everything
That meant anything,
As you looked at me like a stranger
Intruding on your personal space,
When you had come to know
Just about everything about me...
That little voice that murmured softly -
Albeit falling hard and fast on deaf ears,
Not unlike how we had -
That one day you might regret
Walking away?

No.

You suffocated that little voice,
Smothered it with your pride,
Your tender,
Delicate,
Obnoxious pride,
Pride in nothing
To be particularly proud of.

You suffocated it
The way you suffocated me
With your arsenical tongue,
Sweet on the surface
And killing me slowly
With every word you spoke.


"We wouldn't have made it in the end."

You're right. We wouldn't have.
For any and every reason
You could think of,
Whether or not it was the truth.
You didn't want us to make it.
So we didn't.

But then, maybe it's better to walk away,
So that what wouldn't make it in the end
Can make room for something
That doesn't have an end to be made.

It was in his arms that I found this clarity,
This realization that you had to
Break me,
Shatter me,
Leave me as wide open
As my wounds
So that I could let him in.

It was hearing his words,
So conflicting with yours,
That brought me to the idea
That I was not as worthless
As you had made me
Out to be.
The idea that
Even in my most vacant moments,
I could fill someone else's void.
That even in my greatest fury,
I can bring someone peace.
That when my demons
Are not sleeping,
And making me Hell
To be around,
That at my most worthless,
When I am nothing
Or at least perceive myself to be,
There is someone
To whom
I can mean everything.

Though it will be the last
And only time
I ever thank you again
(And of course you will
Never know that I have),
I must do so.

I must thank you for having
The cowardice to walk away
Without a glance back
Or a second thought given
Or a single regret had
About what you did to me.

Because,
To have been abandoned
The way I was
And found
The way I was
Is to look back and realize
That there was nothing
I could have said or done,
Given or taken,
Declared or renounced,
Nothing I could have meant to you
That would have saved you
From what you can't be saved from.


Your misery is your only companion now.

*And my happiness is mine.