we locked eyes and i didn’t know i’d already started to drown
you spoke in fire but all i saw was the glow.
promises bled through your teeth,
as you hid the ashes in the sheath.
your touch was a symphony of desire,
but love, it seems, was a language
you never learned to inspire.

you held me like a trophy.
but trophies don’t have hearts, do they?

and then, there was blood.
not the kind that heals,
but the kind that screams in silence,
that no one sees or feels.
i waited for your hand!
for your voice to break the ache
but your care was a phantom,
a shadow i couldn’t shake.
you kissed my name on your boots?
yet left me bleeding in my bed.  
your love was a script, rehearsed.
while i lived without an urge.
i gathered myself in the dark,
each fragment, each broken part,
but i left before the light had burned
before you saw my heart returned.
i burned what the boys left of me
and rose from the ashes,
again, wild and free.

for i am no man’s reflection
i am my own truth, my own salvation.