That night
he held me
like a promise
he poured his guts
on the bed of the hotel room
his breath on my shoulder
this human
this beast of a man reduced to a coil
in my caring embrace
i understood
the molecules
of his nature

his revelations filled
the room with a heavy
stench of sadness
he told me, he loved me
in all his conviction
i know you don't love me
I said
i would later find out
he did, love me
in his own
silent
cruel
way

when we held hands
later that night
the artificial affection
i looked at him in awe still
i was so ever gladdened to bask in his glory
i watched him drive into the night
he is not the answer my faculties screeched
they all never were
this was madness
the pinnacle of circling
on the edge of the never-ending.

Will you say to them
when I'm gone
I loved your daughter
For the fire on her tongue
arms flung open
the devotion in her bones, still.

your daughter is an animal
uncontainable
She spends too much time
digging out the dirt
in her fingernails
Your daughter is too overbearing
she reeks of calamity's foreboding
her blood
soaked in dirt
your daughter scares other daughters
and sons away
her arms are too flung open
her blood and bone too sacrificial
clutching on
to hems of trousers
The quivering hands
She holds a pit in her belly
carries fire on the tip
of her tongue
burning the land and the foundations
on which she stands
Yet she worries about the visibility of her difference

The screams
infertile
delirious
The burning halo
Hanging on your neck
Your perfect edges ruffled
Grief awaits in a corner
at the dawn of tedious despair.