Things in this world are too tangible
I see them all through the eyes
of a god of death; a date
writing itself on a small slip of paper
and pressing itself into my hand

love, I want to feel without consequence,
bruise the truth with my lies and let the blood
whisper "forever" beneath my skin.
I'm sick of this strain of terror

I never even knew hate until I was branded with it
you took your white-hot palm and placed it over my lips,
closed your eyes and recited the endless crimes
of a wanted criminal who wore my face
but whom I'd never known

and when the silence rotted, you turned your head
and wept as a victim.
You murderer. You examined me for scars
left me for dead without a heartbeat
named it "suicide" as an act of faith.

With indifference as a blade, you cut me
but the paper skin peeled back to nothing
and I demand no satisfaction, no pound of flesh;
in the future there will be no ghosts to mourn;
only the changed or the cruel will haunt us

And you, you are both,
demon of acclaimed justice, you rancor deity,
you who refutes any claim of vindictiveness
but feels "manipulation" as a sort of emotion
and understands "abandonment" to be a kind of justifiable punishment
for having dropped short of perfection
and come up instead as
merely human.
To forgive is divine.

We are failures of gods, you and I