Key

I hid a thought once    
I buried it deep inside a word    
inside a poem for you    
and I charged that word with mojo    
spiked it with my hard love voodoo.    
I taught my charge to keep quiet    
to sleep inside your mind    
growing strong enough    
to navigate the flows    
through the heart    
to the loins    
then back through the mind    
searching out those secret places    
into which it could wiggle    
its nasty little self    
infecting you with me.    
That word you can't quite remember reading    
that held that thought    
still draws you inexplicably back    
down the trail of each new line    
lost and looking for the clearing    
and at every turn home feels so close    
as I lead you deeper down the rough and wild.    
   
It wasn't hard    
a few good guesses about a bad daddy    
some details that might be true of anyone    
pinpricks to breach the dam    
and I burst through from all sides    
until you swore I'd invaded your darkest recess    
like a jaguar stalking your thicket    
where you are clawless, so vulnerable    
that you surrender yourself as my sole prey.

But these are not your woods.    
I laid the lines and grew the poetry upon them.    
I darkened the sky    
hung the moon and soaked the moss    
planted every tree and twisted each root    
and made this purposeful path where I pass    
ahead holding the only light    
that leads you farther in.    
That glow is not my heart of gold,    
but the sheen of a well worn key    
one that I had hidden once    
working all the while inside of you.