Take my gold and frisk my crown
          Pull jewels from my neck and scrub the expensive oils from my skin
          Burn the fine linens and strip me of my silks
I have no need for such trivialities.

     Turn your face from me and harden your heart
           Cast me out from my home, my sanctuary
           I shall die in a shelter rather than a palace, but all the same,
I shall be just as dead here as there.

     Lose me my birthright, my title and my throne
           Change the name on the scroll of the fate I was born for
           Sell your right-hand seat to the prettiest bidder
I will die knowing I would not sell out.

     You, the one I held in my foolish heart so dear,
          Can take away from me everything I gave you
          But you cannot take the strength with which I was born, for
I represent the one virtue you cannot own.

     Replace me if you must but know that I will lie in peace
           Forget me if your heart allows it, but never forget
           That I-- the woman who dares defy the king--
I hold more power in my will than you have in your court.

Amongst the broken ships
I see thy standing upon a sinking deck
No chains bound her in place
The glare of sunlight shields her face
Then swans and sparrows come in pairs
Settling upon her feet
Pecking and prodding with cooing sounds
Their music a masterful soothing score
That drowns out the brutish ocean’s roar
So that a new sea of melody floods the world
Then all these notes flow into the girl
Resting within her once rigid heart
Which has now become a sacred Ark

Your good book couldn't save me as I saw the abyss,
Yet your rage, and fury and bile drew me to Hell,
And I saw that Hell is so subjective.

Looking down at a thousand souls screaming,
Writhing, drowning, dying,
I realised that they were all my own.

I looked back at a life battered,
Burned, scorched earth,
Filled with constant plagues that I hadn't earned.

I tried to reach for help – my sides, the sky, the ground,
But there was no voice from above, nobody beside me, and no ground below me,
I just hovered in stasis.

Is this your 'purgatory'?
I doubt it, because that's how I'd describe my life;
Just one bitter, broken period of waiting for something every worse.

Every emotional floor, cracking bones like cracking thunder,
Heart shattered by lightning, eyes torn out as pennance,
It was all so ******* biblical.

Flits of crepuscular longing across the simoom in the night. For with samiel at the helm, all hell will take us for sloth. Firstly, a schism overtakes the wind, backsliding the doorstep of Lucifer’s kin. Keep an eye on the door’s of ewes. The child angered by sky will surely lust for the hedonists imbue. Then the rattle shakes, pelting trunks of lye, chafing the goons of the dawn and choking from the ***** in our young. Aristotle bakes yore, and relief takes the pen, until the quietness of the impala becomes transfixed by our brethren. Then sores take the skin by trial. Eagerly rushing towards the venomous trails, and only then does the bandit bemoan the pain. Only then will the hungered and hungry peel back their fingers for fare, there where the flocks lay in wait and in pairs. Here where the melancholy of revenge, fills our quivers with children’s tears. Only then do we make haste for the shade, otherwise the sun will cook our hides to the colors of the day, then we will lay quiet too. Maybe then we’ll be overtaken by the Xombie Moon.

In the garden she danced
Hair flowing ebony
Flitting and fleeting from one flower to the next
Inhaling their beauty
Admiring their depth
My delighted eyes entranced
Locked on that sight
As I watched her

She climbed the trees
And rested among the branches
Counting the leaves and the creatures
Marvelling at their magnificence
Commending the creator
My enraptured eyes fixated
Silently
As I watched her

The sun grew taller
And the heat grew unbearable
A splendid combination of her passion
And the peak of summer's glory
She was restless
In perpetual adventure
All in the confines
Of our small slice of nature

She grabbed me by the wrist
That grip she held on the branches moments earlier
Pulled me to the grass and we lay
We laughed
We dreamed
Of summers days to come
Her excitement and vigour
Breathtaking

Finally at peace in the silence
Next to that ebony hair
And hazel stare
We lay until the sun dipped into the horizon
And left nothing but a pastel glow
Inhaling the scent of the evening
Admiring the softness of the clouds
She was locked on that sight

Yet,
I watched just her.

(The day I met you, I relented: “Friend, do what you are here to do.”)

I flicked the gas card between my fingers. We had $50 to do whatever we wanted, maybe even take that aquarium trip up to Boston we had talked about so much. Your birthday was a month ago, you were then 17. This was the second birthday of yours we shared together and before you left- not before I told you to drive carefully, my love, and before you forgot all the leftover cake at my house- you kissed my cheek. I laughed into the naked air over my bed- Judas. You are my Judas. The Bible never taught me anything.

I don't think you know what anger can do to a person. You see, I haven't cried about you once. Not once, in one year. I have laid in the same spot where we first kissed, and I have not imagined your clumsy lips over mine.  I realized then you could love something more than yourself- as yourself. The heat from your shoulder never bled out of my body. But, I do not imagine much more.

And maybe I'll be here, standing in the spot where we looked to the stars, a spot whose coordinates will never be written in history books, a spot with numbers I have no reason to remember but I will, and I will be screaming, where are you? Where did you go? Where did I go?

But I know exactly where you are. I will know you are lying asleep in your too-neat bedroom, the one blanket you had before me pressed over you like origami. I will know you are not thinking of me, and definitely not dreaming of me because you do not dream.

And I will know that when we were 15, we dreamed about 18. You could finally drive to who knows where, the window of your car down, music as loud as the law allows, the soft Cali sunlight sainting you. But now, my Judas, you are a birthday and a lifetime away, and where you are now and forever is wherever I left you when we last held hands.

(Today: “I will not kiss Thee as did Judas; but as the thief, I will confess Thee: Lord, remember me in Thy kingdom.”)