You think I summoned you?

That I lit a flame and lured you like a moth?

No love, you came.

You came with your ring still warm on your hand
Your prayers still clinging to your breath.

You crossed your own lines.

I just stood there, quiet, watching, inevitable.

They call me witch,
say I cast spells,

But the truth is far simpler.

I see you.

That frightens men more than any magic.

You wear your hunger like cologne 

And your lies like wedding bands.

I only ever peel back the veil.

They speak of my hair, 
fire, they say
As if it's the flame that burns them,

Not their own reaching hands.

And my eyes. Yes, green.
 Like the wild.
Like envy.
Like things that grow
in places too dark to name.

I was not made to be loved safely.

I was made of thresholds and fruit bitten too soon
You know my name already, don’t you?

Not the one they whisper behind closed doors

But the one that hums beneath your ribs

When you dream of gardens no woman tends.

Do you want to know a secret?

They don’t fall for my beauty.

They fall because I know.

Know where their longing lives.

Know the ache they dress up as righteousness.

I touch the part of them
 they bury in pews and politics.
Still, I never ask them to stay.

I am not a cage.

I am the door they walk through,

and sometimes, the fire they walk into.

So if you came here looking for guilt,

You won’t find it.

If you came looking for salvation
You’re late.

But if you came to burn,
then speak, love.

I’m listening.