Find coastlines along the edges of your body,
mark your territory
and invite gallant young men to try their hand
at crossing a huge wall made of crystal glass
and steel verses.

Let them be afraid of the tombstones gathered
at the gates; tremble at their own risk
because your heart can't handle an unsteady hand:
it's filled to the brim.
And as the tourney dies down,
as the men scratch the surface
and leave with pieces of your arms,
your eyelashes, your cheeks,
there will be one
who is there when the dust settles.

Allow him to love you,
in a most consuming way; let him
take your body a shrine and let him
call it his only home.

Finally,
break his heart,
and watch as the poetry
spills out of you like
an angry river, from a spear
he wishes he'd hit into your chest
not cupid's arrow instead.

A moonlit dance beneathe constellations
      not Taurus or Gemini, Delphinus or Orion
                 but stars we named together
                   linking lines from star to star
       hands pointing in air so cold
a tear falls and
                           another
  leaving a roadmap on my cheeks
            that you
                            chase
                           ­            chase
                                                  chase
   ­         lifting the palm of your hand
                 so cold to the touch I shiver
            feeling the beauty of my tears
         that glisten like Venus in the midnight sky
             of this cold Parisian night
  you smile in jest and
     I misplace the space
  between you and I and that sky
  whispering "do you love me?"
    how could I resist the beauty of
                 our second to last kiss.

© Sia Jane

My mind keeps pictures of you up on its walls
                            again
                         ­         and again
I find my thoughts drifting down that river of memory
orbiting around you, like forces of gravity drawn
to the idea of us (if there even is an us)

If I could then I’d lock you outside my brain, leave you out there to rot
in the abyss, where your words couldn't penetrate me
and your lips that work like anesthesia forbidden to numb me again

I won't do you the injustice of romanticizing your imperfections
You're no nebular, you're a black hole, a gaping flaw in creation
Your eyes that held millenniums of history, now hold me no future

You made me forget what it feels to have stability
To not walk out of a room and forget why I left
You make me want to shred the skin you touched
Like a reptile, to become reborn, purified from my past.

There never were any butterflies in your stomach, only parasites
but you fed them to me readily like a disease

So no, I won’t dedicate you another love poem
                 no I want (deserve) better
This isn't what love should be
I’ll write you a poem where the words convulse on the page
and you’ll forget to read it (you always do)

Broken, shattered
Dreams unraveled
Yet new life springs
From empty matter

Bury me
That I might live
A damaged vessel
Is all I give

Bruised and battered
Full of sin
O wretched man
Abiding within

Bitterness watered
By the tears I've cried
Forgive me Lord
For I have tried

Arms outstretched
Mercy tender
For victory now
I must surrender