Persephone is crying in the Underworld
In rooms of pomegranates
And dark violet blooms
In places created to give her what Hades
believed he couldn't
“He walks as if he believes himself Death,”
She thinks
“He watches his reflection like Hera watches Zeus;
disgusted.
Always looking for some former glory.”
But the 3 Fates are his alone
How did he not see her coming?
She cries because she loves him
And he doesn't know how to love himself
She hands him pomegranate
And bloom
She shows him every mirror in her room
“How can you not love what is only an extension of me?”

The Gods wanted to think she did not love him
They found this easier to believe.

now look baby before I start
I want you to know you put the beat in my heart
but idk if its enough to keep us from fallin apart
you see loving someone is just another art
everyday you gotta show them the chart
a diagram of reasons, list why you can't leave them
that changes with the seasons

I keep my heart under lock & key
guarded till the clock strikes 3
oh no you're everything, that's anything, bad for me
I keep my heart under lock & key

Everyday we a constant battle
slaughtering each others thought more than cattle
we hear the screamin in our head
ignore it so you can go to bed
nope, find a different way to calm the things that brought you to this state
workin overtime for half of minimum rate
you know theres something wrong
but you can't find the way
to apologize for letting out the demons, so someone else could feel them
a flow chart of treason, list why you can't see them
that changes with the seasons

I was dark and it was bright
the moon shades were at half tyne
and I wept
I felt confused but I carried on
through shedding dapple bright.

And it was very dim in the forest
of palms and swaying trees
but still I carried on
bravely as if he were still alive.

You didn't deserve those harsh words
I threw at you the other night,
And I don’t deserve your forgiveness.

We hurled spiteful, bitter spikes at each other.
Mine bounced off of you,
Yours sunk deep into my chest, and stayed for a while.

Shouting and screaming,
Not knowing quite why.
And it was all my fault that things went awry.

I doubted your motives,
I didn't want to be vulnerable in front of you.
So instead, I turned against you and fought, unnecessarily.

I left, to contemplate what had happened.
I came back, to make amends, and take back those spikes of mine,
And you collected yours as well, and promised to throw them away.

And so we sat there, I in your embrace,
Taking advantage of this intimacy while I could,
Because this isn't going to last.

I still doubt your motives, your words, this whole relationship,
But the shame, guilt, secrecy and sneaking around,
Do not nearly outweigh the bliss I feel when I am with you.

Not even a little bit.

I'm going home,
leaving the pack unknown and unsafe
and my eyes strafe, swoon and sigh at the holy display
of the pure 9-to-5,
walking away from her place of pay,  
to go home like me tonight.

A swift above carries on home,
food for its young carried between teeth and tongue.
A family walk from the local school,
with song being sung from the cooler two of the sons.
A car reverses nearly knocking and smudging the woman in blue;
a jacket atop a blouse, pristine shop-bought-new.

I remember her sunglasses.
I remember her eyes from behind her sunglasses.
I remember her staring me down through the lenses
melancholy and blue,
knowing that this was a passing
break-through affair.

pressing the tight muscles of my shoulders
hard against the stillness of the air

leaning into the melody and out of it again

my fingers not unlike grasping claws
trying to pull music from
a dead thing
that does not love me
the way
it used to.

you have robbed me of my music,
of the words that would
flow in elegant waves from my willing fingers,
refreshing as water but not nearly as
cliche.

the melodies
that raised the veins in my neck
when i spoke them to the mirror
and the windshield,
that left me breathless
heart pounded
half-smiling
into the beautiful vortex of my
spired mind.


they're gone now.


and i'm left with a dead horse slung across both shoulders
and an albatross
around my neck.