I've become convinced that love ends in pain.

Maybe not in eternity, but in this life, I believe that's true. Love in this life has an end already written. And it hurts. Giving into love is like locking yourself in a prison, knowing that a lethal injection is the only way out. I used to think that didn't matter to me... "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Well my defense mechanisms are screaming the opposite. They're making the part of love that's supposed to be sweet have a bitter aftertaste. I thought I would choose love, even knowing the end. Now love's been presented to me so nicely, but my guts are in a knot and that lethal injection is haunting me. How do you defy every self-preservation bone in your body for love?

To make it even more difficult, I don't see anyone else struggling with this decision. Other people just embrace the lethal injection without a second thought. They're okay with the trade. They don't even care if a key to the prison exists cause they would never so much as think about taking it. Love is worth it to them...

Why isn't it to me?

What made my defense mechanisms so heightened that I can't deny them for something I want. For something that would be really good... Maybe a key doesn't exist. But my mind found another solution: don't go into the prison. Just avoid the whole thing to begin with. So here I am, stuck in the middle. In what feels like a perpetual struggle between my heart wanting something beautiful and good, but my brain being in fight-or-flight mode trying to protect me. It's exhausting. It's a lot easier just being alone... My life was still so full...
The "happily ever after" side of me wants to believe I'll choose love. But my brain is a realist. And it has a hard time believing I'll choose the prison...

i'm a light machine gun.....
locked up and loaded in rounds......
firing all kinetic energy and reason..........
across the trenches and the fields i've sent..........
pistols, shotguns, autos to their knees.........
but as i unlock and reload and cool down..........
and the panicked silence settles in.........
i have to ask in kind......

s n i p e r..

do i have your eye?

We lock things
to keep them safe

We lock them
as plan B

because at that time
we feel unsafe
around them

you are my defender,
I don't need a pretender,
you hold the lock and key,
to my heart; set me free,
from the misogyny.

i already cut my hair once
to feel like progress had been made;

and every new year isn’t December
it’s March.

wonder if you still recite my name backwards
the vowels around a tongue;

remind me
that things broken open may never lock again.

A hiss of the moon tucking
into just a pair of lock
let alone in pavilion-tresses
on the back of one's eternal silence.
Giving autumn shadows
to seven skies' azure.
What now the stars are gone
followed in their countless galore!

Eyes of the buds ope
dreaming nightingale
hops up to the morning rose  
singing in what a balmy fold.

And so to love-
we're dared to lock eyes;
As with both keys to heart.
And so to enter;
one knows the sound of love's knock.