I realized
as I aged that
my own intensity was not easily weathered by any man. Or any person.
My almond eyes were Venus flytraps
to the ghosts of my past who were drawn in all too quickly,
only to be devoured by their ceaseless lust and depraved need.
There was no dial to my passion, once awakened it could only be suppressed to a dull roar.
Many who met my gaze disintegrated before me into piles of dust and rubble and hollow disappointment.
They say eyes are the window to the soul, and I thought mine was host to a terrible demon or succubus.
I only discovered as my brain finished stitching together in my early adulthood that it is not demons who crumble weak men with their eyes, but goddesses