They all gnashed their teeth and snarled
Fed by evening news of sensational delights
This meal divides them, one squad against another
Their cackling splits the peaceful night

Their spittle soaks the blood-drenched ground
Yellow eyes gaze with maniacal rage
Single-minded to scavenge and consume
As writers fill teleprompters' page

Logic lost in frenzied carnage
Horrid breath from yellowed teeth
As these jackals howl, "feed us more!"
Caverns filled with bones of human grief

We the people of a more perfect union
Trapped between beasts set to conquer
My country 'tis of empty-headed politics
As You, I, We become the monster

done with the violence
done with the pain
done with the same shame
over and
over and over
again

done with the accusations
and the suspicions
done with the same lies
in different forms
and messed up versions

today you said you're sorry
you said you love me
you always will
but who knew a love like this
could somehow ****
the passion
the trust
the ways that I
thought I knew you
were loving me the same way
I did
with my whole heart and
my whole life

my whole life
is unrecognisable and I
can barely tell which truth to believe in
because how can you ever deceive
someone who stopped their heart beating
for you
how can you destroy someone who
took you in their arms and
went ahead and said,
"stay here, you belong in the home
inside my heart
I built only for you."

done with late night crying
finding myself imagining dying
as a way out, an escape
done with blaming you or me
for the choices I keep on making
done punishing
myself for the mistakes
that you made
because I made the same mistakes too
as if the path to forgiveness is repeating
the ways we've hurt each other hoping
it will just stop to hurt
at some point

it's like you and I
Or mostly I
have to tiptoe around landmines
Afraid I'll discover more crimes
afraid I'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time and
careful I don't set off the time bomb
that is called Our Relationship

when heartbroken poets make metaphors
about wounds and battle scars
I wonder where mine are
because I've been through this same war
fought it and won it and lost it
for years and years on repeat
and yet I have no marks to prove it
so maybe not every victory is a celebration
and not every survival is the ending of the story
and not every abuse leaves a bruise
and here I am still writing
wondering about my own story's ending

snakes surrounding my trailer
kick down the door
break all windows
knock me to the floor
I know what they're here for

they want me
I know that they want me
they don't even hide it
black eyes, black hair, black stare
he doesn't even hide it

a punch to the guts
a cut on my cheek
kisses me with a fist
my eye as black as his
he knew he wouldn't miss

and they want me
I can feel they want me
he doesn't even hide it

whisper into the night
hissing like vipers
biting like vipers
poisoning my wine
running out my nose
poisoning my mind

they got me
they know that they got me
I don't even hide it
black eye, black hair, blank stare
he takes my hand
and leads me out.

The sun stood high in a spotless blue sky,
the pool water cool on my skin;
your skin shone with sweat and I seemed to forget
the nightmare that I was trapped in.

That oh so cruel sun of Greece shone on,
never once thought to pause;
it looked down at us as your hands, oh so rough,
collided with my bruised jaw.

Summer went fleeting like every new beating,
it was over soon after begun;
you pulled on my hair and threw me into despair,
and the radio, carefree, played on.

Flying
Crying
Multiplying
Terrifying
Shrapnel flying, burned children crying
Deaths multiplying, the world's terrifying