how to be the maze and the minotaur

 




it amused him to make confetti of my wings and hips
to be the illustrator of my dreams
only to watch my eyelids spasm
as he kept the torch
steady in my hands

the symphony of pain was ribbons
of oasis threading themselves through my ribs,
i wore my hurt like a corset
i couldn't breathe
only blink and smile for everyone

i thought, "this is happiness, being protected
from a long lasting oasis
that will only dry up
and leave me thirsting for more fiction
this is
Truth
life
being loved"

murdered imaginings-
their remains were never snowflake consistency so that i could dust my hair and pillow, pretend he was giving me stardust
instead,
they were crippled maimed things
irreparable
gaping blind holes
for eyes and a mouth
i couldn't even bring myself to kiss
and put in a burial box

i am a ship skeleton of all the wicked musings i have fled,
the god beasts i carried in my belly like i was an ark
the horrors that have fed on my sails
suckled my marrow
pesticides infecting my mind gardens,
turning my butterfly food to poison
bent unmoving hummingbird bodies dotting the shore of my misery
my bones thrown back at me to create a make-shift shelter
a place where you could only hear me cry

i have never been one to dream beyond my means
but you
you are so much more than i deserve
you are effortless
and well meaning
and so soft to kiss it startles me
to tears
you bring me rainy day feeling
i want to cuddle
and tickle play melodies on your back
thrash against the full moon
defy heaven with our bliss
our completeness
moan like the thunder,
this hunger that will not quell
until i've ridden you like we'll never see a starry sky again
entrapped you in honey and amber
become a blanket for your soul

i'm afraid i will only hurt you

i am not used to being loved so tenderly,
being sought by compassionate eyes

the world we help inhabit is a demented circus
hinge-jawed jackals in the audience
throw my organs at me
and i'm one step ahead of this fire
eating the tightrope to snow white ash

i want to stop sometimes
and save you from my arms
from a fall that would only crush us both
from the demons thrashing within me, banging music on my soul like a garbage pail lid
wracking my body with sobs
that lurch like piano keys
being locked away

i want to leap into the fire
and not look back

i want so desperately to give you the flaming haired sunflower eyed
rhapsody mouthed goddess you imagine of me
wild and insane and beautiful
yours
i want to give you the heavens we try to capture in snow globes
to carve love poetry for you in my breasts, my hips
because you can't chop me down

your love makes me strong
makes me believe i can be more
than a damaged clock eyed girl
with useless music running through my hands like sand

i am just so scared
that when you truly see me
once the drunkeness is slept away
i'll only be an almost muse
not quite enough to kiss an always smile onto your lips

that you will realize
it is futile to love a stockholm syndrome monster

i love you even more than i love melancholy in my tea
and thorns in my birdhouses

you are helping me to love me
and i don't know
how to feel except lost, frail
frightened
like i will fail


x