That savoury love,
That familiar comfort, a home cooked meal.
The reliable morning texts and midday calls
My warm, rounded, sleepy belly.
That sweet love,
That longed for joyful treat, my childlike excitement
The tender kiss on my forehead
My wonderment, my gentle hope for more
That sour love,
That acrid seizure, my face contorted in shock The lingering invisible betrayal
My confused tastebuds, their longing for dissipation
That bitter love,
Those biting words, our requited animosity
The weaponising of our failings
My aggrieved mouth and her repugnant venom.
That hot love,
The picnic of your mouth by the ocean
The heated liminality before each kiss
Our frenetic and impermanent fire.

I'm on the other side
I promise I don't mind
That we don't see each other anymore
That we have others to pray for.

Somewhat nice
Bitter but in disguise
It'll all fade
To new promises, to be made.

Hope you keep them
Hope you feel them
See them through
This time around, with someone new.

Sometimes bitter, still fresh and bright
These are the traits of newly minted life
This is life in Christ Jesus our Lord
This is precious myrrh outpoured
The fragrance of our earthly lives
The incense of our prayers as they rise
Chew the fresh mint's leaves of green
And experience just what I truly mean
We were not promised an easy road
Full of sun and nary a cloud to be found
There may be persecution or disbelief
And days and nights of such great grief
There will be hard times and bitterness
But life is so, so much more than this
It is full of promise and full of hope
Full of awe and wonder and beauty
It is joy in sorrow and peace to help cope
I feel its protection is our sacred duty
Each one a note of clearest purest tone
Some cut short before they were grown
Unable to add their song to the symphony
Voices echoing out into God's own infinity
Truly, life can be bitter, but it can be sweet
If we can humble ourselves
If we can wash each other's feet

Tinted glasses
In a lightless room
She reaches and grabs where she can
But it’s always a shallow effort
Transactional love

But that’s not the love I want to receive
I want to know you trust me
I want to feel you support me
Not take and take and take

I learn to cut the strings for people who are great at wasting my time.
But I mourn each thread of the girl I used to be.
The little girl who hugged lonely looking people in the grocery store.

the blood of my mother is sweet.
but the blood of my father is sour.

no wonder i am certain of nothing.
even my blood does not know
how it should taste.

The ***** of old cigarettes
-their draft up your nostrils, going to war
with your lungs. Making rivers of red,
wet big eyes: a sore sight to the very mind

And came a sweet bite out of a cutie pie
whose sweet lips offer up such a surprise,
a slice of life; cherry filled with love- with such
a pinching sweetness, with a little hint of that
piercing on the tongue

So, when the two kiss, there’s a cigarette
flavour added into that tasty piece of pie

When I was younger, it all seemed like play,
I bit my own tongue without knowing the way.
Tarnished my name, got caught in the mess,
Too busy chasing honey to notice the stress.

Chasing the sweet, I missed the bitter bite,
Blind to the venom hiding in plain sight.
In cold moments, I feel the regret,
The honey I chased, the venom I let.

when did you turn bitter
was it when she touched you
spun lies you couldn’t reject

or did you turn bitter long before
when love felt like a slice of lemon
dripping on an open wound

was the pain of losing me so great
that you’d rather give up
before fighting for what’s left

did you turn bitter before you broke my heart
or did you turn bitter
after
when i broke yours
with lies as easily spun as hers