i don't want to drown, you say.
you jump back in anyway.

he and you are a whirlpool
save for one thing:

the two of you will burn.

i'm getting tired of waiting on you.

and i'm starting to think
that you're getting tired, too.

v.
you, my dear, are cruel -
a cruel girl for a cruel world.
you'll laugh as they burn.

vi.
i tried to save you
from a monster. it turned out
the monster was you.

vii.
hunt us down. watch me:
i will pledge my heartblood oath
if it's in your name.

viii.
swallow the earth whole.
you're the titan among us.
none can stop you now.

do you hear me, stars?
draw me into your constellation, cassiopeia.
tell me how you were once beautiful.
i'll tell you that you still are.

do you hear me, sky?
orion hunts comets, supernovas, galaxies.
every night, he catches them all.
he lets them go alive.

do you hear me, moon?
tonight perseus and andromeda escape
to the milky way, sing over neptune.
feel them in venus' dunes.

do you hear me, earth?
tomorrow i'll count the countless stars.
if you knew how to measure infinities
you'd discover our worth.

do you hear me, stars? (i know you do.)
hercules, break open my heart.
teach me the secrets inside.

the night they wed,
cinderella slits the prince’s throat.
she won’t trade her prison
for a pretty cage.

the beast conquers nations,
but beauty’s the one telling him how.

aurora wakes herself.
she’ll spend centuries guarding
a city that never stirs,
and she never questions
her duty to people long gone.

rapunzel burns the tower.
ariel rules the sea.

blood is thrumming in these veins:
to the beat of the sun’s breaths,
to the pulse of echoed birdcall,
to the rhythm of screaming life.

this heartbeat is dripping lava beneath the earth;
these eyes are morning mist draping pines;
these bones are hollow like the first snow;
these fingers are peaks brushing icy clouds;
in the right is held an ocean; the left, the desert sands;
and every inhalation mirrors another’s death.

try and tell me you are indestructible.
try and tell me you are paramount.
try and tell me you are not of the earth –
i dare you.
(these tides will rip you apart.)

this is a love story told in metaphors,
because words can’t say how gravity
pulls on planets and suns and stars,
but they’ll be gone before they touch.

this is a love story told in metaphors.
giving voice to drowning in an ocean
of red will never be possible – despite
our myths of old, we’re only human.

this is a love story told in metaphors:
we are of fire and ice, forever apart;
of twilight, when night and day strain
for each other but always fall short;
of science, faith, and all in between;
of concepts of “peace” and “human”;
of two things that shall never coexist.

this is a love story told in metaphors
because i do not know why i am still
reaching for you when we’ll always be
stopped by something greater than us.

we are a love story told in metaphors.
outside of words, our souls will surely
explode.