Conquer

“Conquer”

What would you promise me—the answers?
When did we become perfect strangers?
You know every weakness that ties me
To you—am I making it too easy?
I am scarred every time we get across
That bridge you should have burned by now.
But I fear to wake to another day of loss.
There’s just so much poison I’m willing to swallow!

Will I be flesh when the lights shine no longer?
There are still ways of the skin for you to conquer.
No one is here—there are nightmares and fragility
In the face of such accursed divinity.
Tell me, why this question? Why this prayer?
Why the distance for me and what stands there?

You give me what we used to share as though it’s new,
And I don’t know what I can give that you don’t see through:
It’s all veils of smoke between our eyes that distance us
From that last strip of flesh and the body that was.

Will I be flesh when the lights shine no longer?
There are still ways of the skin for you to conquer.
Nobody is here—you can’t see what you do not know
When you have engraved so deeply that all is hollow.
The road is getting nearer—the sorrow we parade
As we make our way to the masquerade
Of lives now separate. Nightmares come home.
So that I do not sleep alone.
Will I be flesh when the light shines no longer?
There are still ways of the skin for you to conquer.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle