Wine sparkles on her tongue, in the same shade of pink
Buzzing through her lips and cheeks, warming her laughter
Gold glimmers in her eyes and around her neck
Where my jealous hands want to be, feeling her blood and breath
Jean friction at her hips, where my teeth want to gnaw
Painful heat in between, where my mouth wants to draw-
Art likened to the greats, in a language we've discovered tonight
We will never speak it again, here it will rest. Right?

If I could be brutally honest, here’s what I’d tell you. I’m tired of your mind games — the same ones you deny you do. You establish something casual but then you go on to saying and doing things that make me believe otherwise. You tell me you want me but you don’t act like it. You say you miss me but you go days without ever messaging me.  You make me feel so replaceable. Disposable. You’re hot then you’re cold. You’re sweet enough to keep me around but you don’t put in the work for anything more. It scares me how you could change your mind in the blink of a second, or bat your eyes elsewhere the minute I’m gone. What makes it worse is that I know you do. You have no ******* idea how ****** it is to be outright told you’ve been ******* around with somebody else. It hurts me to know that you think you could fool me into believing all of the things you say. You don’t say it because you mean it — you say it because it’s what I want to hear. You say it because you know you have this hold over me. You say it because you know I’d cave. You don’t make me feel like I’m worth it, and you definitely don’t make me love myself more. With you, it’s just messy. Cheap thrills. Lies on top of lies. Sweet nothings whispered to my ear. ***** little secrets. Emptiness. I never expected anything from you. You give me slight doses, enough to keep me around, but never enough to assure me that this is all worth it. Don’t play with my feelings just because you’re unsure of your own. I’m not a gamble. I always thought that messing around with someone older meant that I wouldn’t be playing these games anymore but clearly you’re not mature enough to know what you want. I’m done settling for whatever this is. Get drunk, or stay sober — just keep your **** mess away from me.

She has a vintage soul,
Full of rusty and dusty memories,
With the antique eyes
That seen some terrible events,
Her beauty reflects
the Victorian epoch,
Her wisdom is such sterling that
Vanquish the wisdom of Socrates,
But the fate and destiny
Leads her in the 21st century,
She feels like an alien
Who lives in a stranger place
But for her comfort in this world,
She has her books and a coffee mug.

–Humaira

The clean church Christ
hangs on rusty nails,
dozen-fold years
denied a resurrection,
tied to everlasting
pain and death,
heaven denied,
mortal redemption denied
because the flesh,
existing between hope and despair,
refuses the soul’s release.

The congregation
is dead to peace,
only knowing the scrapping
of their knuckles on the smooth stone-
dead to the light,
seeing only the night,
dead to divine comprehension,
dead to the angels hiding
in their coarse crosses
of common wood.

Outside the lamb
bleats in the snow
wandering unheard
in the wilderness,
fearing slaughter
more than charity,
wandering far from
their muffled mouths,
wandering far from
their questioning,
wandering far from
their sense of things.

You will be safe as long as I'm here with you
You don't really need me, it's true
But I'm here
I'm not what you expect in a knight
I'm not charming
I'm not super strong
I'm not even that brave
My armor is old and rusty
My sword is broken
I don't even have a horse
But for you, I will fight
For you, I would die
For you, there is nothing I wouldn't do

Not myself,
Not with those wide staring eyes.
Staring through this wall of water,
Leaking from my attic spaces.
My brain leaks fears, like a rusty tin tap.
No, not myself.
Not with these thoughts or falling tears.