King of Iron Hearts Read online

I felt like a penny

  Picked up, rubbed clean, and then used

  To make a wish for something more.

  Why did you have to change the way

  You loved me?

  Because you wanted to be best?

  Closer?

  More secure?

  Why did you have to change the way

  You spoke to me?

  Because I couldn’t love you back the way

  You wanted?

  And it made you bitter

  Turned you toxic?

  Why did you have to change the way

  You touched me?

  The hand once around my shoulder sliding

  Down the crease of my inner thigh

  Pulling me close when you should be pushing me away

  Because now your lust was in our way

  Why did you have to change the way

  You loved me?

  Because now,

  It is impossible for me to love you back.

  It is its own kind of miracle

  How someone can look at you

  Like you have hung the silver moon

  In the velvet sky of their most luxurious dreams

  One moment

  And

  The next

  They never want to see you

  Again

  Romance novels made me an insomniac

  I waited by the phone in the darkest hours

  Held my breath until the silence mocked me

  And the emptiness of the room without you

  Began to echo

  Overripe with love

  You fall from the limb

  Too ready

  Too willing to be had

  You break open on the ground

  Only food for the flies

  You were moonlit sonatas

  And the stars in the sky

  We were young and hopeless with wishes tied to clouds

  Like children’s balloons

  We didn’t know they were so

  Fragile

  That close to the heavens

  We didn’t know

  That even stardust could rust over time

  Anything for love

  They say

  Let that count for love of self too

  If your soul cries out for it

  It’s not selfish

  It’s sustenance

  Don’t settle for friendship

  When you need love

  Don’t settle for sometimes

  When you deserve someone’s always

  You have the worth you give yourself

  Your worth is not measured by the angle of your hips

  And the gap between your thighs

  In the weight of your breasts

  And the breadth of your smile.

  It’s hidden shyly in the corners of your face

  For few to find.

  A flower safe guarded in the middle

  Of a book you have to study

  Before you find the prize.

  The true currency of your glamour.

  Sometimes a person’s got a soul so pretty

  It makes them glow prettier than anything else.

  Lust is no true substitute for pure care.

  I have an entire galaxy in my soul

  And you have only landed on the moon

  Do not think

  Because you can see my stars

  That you have earned the right to colonize them

  You pushed and pulled

  Breaking apart an old house

  Thinking you wanted what was in it

  All the baggage you thought was treasure

  Finally

  The boards cracked under your pressure

  And I broke open

  Just the way you wanted

  Exactly what you worked for

  All my secrets

  And my troubles

  My old house aches and pains

  At your feet for you to pilfer.

  We didn’t speak after that.

  There is a black hole at the center of every universe.

  It yawns

  Stretches

  And contracts

  But it is constant

  Ever hungry.

  So,

  You feed it.

  Sweet bursts of sugar

  Deep draughts of the finest wine.

  You fill it with vicious violence and

  Blood red rage

  With sex and sinning

  Envy and greed.

  It eats

  And eats

  Everything you give it

  But sometimes

  The right times

  All it takes is a mirror to prop before it

  And it doesn’t seem so depthless after all.

  What do you feed your demons?

  Remember

  It is you who makes a lie come alive.

  Someone need only sow the seed

  In the fertile field of your mind

  Where they might watch it take root

  In your insecurities

  Flourish under the drizzle of your fears

  And blossom in the sunny belief you hold

  For anyone who lets you love them.

  This is how a lie takes hold.

  There are not enough love letters about friendship

  How it feels to know you have a home

  Inside the heart of another being

  They are the kerchief for your tears

  The arms around your shaking shoulders

  The hands that help carry your burdens

  There are not enough love letters about friendship

  Yet they suffer the same betrayals

  And there is nothing as brutal as a knife in the back

  From a person you trusted with all your pain

  I’ve found

  That the worst monsters

  Have the prettiest faces

  The art of deception.

  His laugh was bitter and sharp with hate

  I swallowed it down like hemlock

  And wondered how long it would take

  I have an encyclopedic knowledge

  Of all your flaws

  I ripped out the pages

  Of things to love

  Verbs of worship and nouns that rhyme

  With your name

  I burned the edges of the Holy Bible

  Because you once told me

  God wasn’t as important as our love

  And in the end,

  It was the biggest lie you ever told

  Love looks best on you

  But honestly,

  Hate is pretty too.

  She tends to her anger like a garden

  Waters the earth with her hot salt tears

  So that only red flowers can bloom

  Poppies to commemorate a violent death

  Of something she once held so dear

  Digs up the weeds with her bare hands

  And bleeding broken nails

  So that her skin is stained just as dark

  As the bruises she secrets away on her heart

  She tends to her garden of ivy and wrath

  Like a groundskeeper

  For an estate of eternal hate

  The Midas of death

  I turn everything I touch to ash

  All the beautiful thins reduced to soot beneath my fingernails

  But

  Still I reach for that golden thing

  That indelible light of life

  Even knowing

  The press of one finger

  Will blow it all to smoke.

  No one ever speaks

  About the heartbreak

  Of shattering another’s dreams

  Of taking the love they have for you

  And stamping it

  Cannot be delivered.

  Return to sender.

  Just because I am the one that broke

  Your heart

  It does not mean

  I didn’t rip off a little
piece of my soul

  In the process

  The break up.

  Is there beauty in ashes?

  Because I am razed to the ground

  Burnt up by my own flames

  An arsonist

  With a self-fulfilling destiny

  Who knew love could be so toxic?

  That the flames they spoke of wouldn’t set my heart on fire or heat my groin like warm coals.

  That instead it would eat me up to ash like lit paper

  Until I crumbled into dust.

  Yes, she hurts me

  She knows I love her because I bleed for her whenever she needs proof

  She knows because I fight for her even against myself

  She knows because I fell in love with her at eight and never stopped

  But the cruel agony of life

  Is that I will never know for sure

  How much she loves me back

  Because no one ever taught her how

  Or gave her the courage to try.

  Sometimes love stories don’t work out.

  I stood in a pool of blood

  At the scene of my heartbreak

  And wondered if the blue and red lights

  Flashing across the carnage

  Could make sense of the sorrow

  That brutalized my chest

  As wide and gory as a rifle shot wound.

  Would they itemize the reasons?

  Surmise the motive

  And write a report

  So succinct

  I would read it and

  Not feel the horror of those events

  Again in my heart?

  The police work of therapy.

  They say opposites attract

  But what if

  We really are polar opposites?

  If our currents run at perpendicular angles and our frequencies on different channels

  What if we want to love each other

  But the Law of Physics disproves it?

  Our bodies were magnetic

  The energy between our skin

  Was so strong

  We couldn’t bear to be apart

  But our hearts were polarized

  Too contrary to coexist

  So even when our bodies collided

  Our souls could never connect

  She was whelved so deeply in the tissues and chambers of my heart it took me years to find her

  And by then it was too late.

  All her life

  You planted flowers under her skin

  A poppy on her throat

  Handfuls of peonies across her hips

  A tropical paradise warm and wet

  At her core

  You planted lust and desire in blooms

  And plumes of green leaves

  All over her body

  You planted a garden in her heart

  But didn’t stop to watch it grow

  Or smell the flowers as you passed

  That blossomed just for you

  Seasons of the heart.

  To watch them was to know

  That two souls could be perfectly matched

  Harmoniously in tune

  Seamlessly entangled

  And somehow

  Never know it

  You dropped me

  But I wanted to snap back

  Like a yo-yo

  Into your hand

  Even if it meant

  You would drop me

  Again

  I fought for my fairytale

  And in the end

  My prince was the villain

  And I was a hero

  Corners meet

  Dark nesting in their folds

  Harbouring the fragile glow of a woman

  And I ask you then,

  How do you see me?

  As a creature of the moon

  Refracting a light not lost

  But glimmering

  A soft broken piece of ancient clay

  Submerged in burning fluid

  That eats with tearing teeth at flesh and thought

  Until

  I sit a creature of the moon disowned

  In human sin

  Do you know me as a little lady?

  With milk froth of petticoats

  Stained by rusty human oil

  Doll hands clutching

  To the broken fingers of grace

  Stunted growth now curling over like spoiled time

  In shame

  Know me as the little lady fallen off

  A high sharp shoe

  Would you want me as a naked woman lies?

  Curving broken back to arch

  Groaning desperate desire

  From a throat painted with crimson lines

  Of your love

  Tasting like honeyed cream

  Without the blemish of tattooed bluebells and overripe plums

  Want me as I lay a woman

  Exposed lines folds and hand holds

  Not as naked as you’d like

  Could you love me as I am?

  Like a soft child’s lullaby of

  Glimmering shimmering gold

  Like a masterful David to look at and lust

  But only wonder at in gentle curiosity

  As not the naked woman lies

  As not the little lady knows

  As not the creature of the moon

  But more a person of her own

  Then how do you see me?

  As I crouch in a corner of shadow’s nest

  Licking and lapping at metallic red to

  Stop the human oil slick

  And soothe the sore lace torn flesh

  Back curved in not lust for you

  But pain

  How do you see me now, my love?

  Street poetry

  Written in graffiti and waste

  One man’s garbage is another’s taste

  The art of being thrown away.

  I couldn’t have you so

  We stopped speaking.

  I couldn’t avoid you so

  I moved to another country.

  I couldn’t forget you so

  I married another woman

  Dreamt of you each night

  And woke up with her each morning.

  I couldn’t have you yet

  Even across all that ocean

  With all that time between us

  And me

  I was still doomed to love you.

  A wish is a seed

  Something to plant and germinate

  Something to nurture and grow

  They teach you in grade school

  Water, sunshine, soil

  And poof

  A plant

  I thought hope was like that

  Love was like that

  And while I had the seed to sow

  You gave me nothing to feed it

  I am a fallow field.

  I kept waiting for all the dirt and rain

  Of my life

  To blossom into flowers

  But I guess

  Sometimes

  Dirt is just grime

  And rain just falls

  So many men try to drown their misery at the bottom

  Of a bottle.

  Why don’t they try to drown it in the rain?

  Or trap it in prose at the bottom of that bottle

  And drown it in the sea.

  The natural remedy for all maladies.

  Definition:

  Increase the stakes, especially in times of dispute or conflict.

  I don’t want to be the phoenix

  I want to be the serpent

  The snake is not

  The sly evil thing in the grass

  Of Eden’s garden

  It is the serpent

  A healer and fertile harbinger

  The two twisted heads on the staff of Hermes

  The serpent is the middle of black and white

  The dual expression of good and evil

  The ser
pent does not die and is reborn anew

  The serpent evolves, changes, and grows

  Shedding the skin of the past but retaining the memory

  So that when it slithers forward it does it wise

  She was sharp as a heart attack

  A woman in need of sacrifice

  And reverence

  Who understood her worth

  And demanded payment

  For her venerable affections

  I capitulated to the fury of her need

  Cut my heart out of my chest with her dagger

  Rusty with old blood

  The stain of other lovers

  Who had failed to fill her greed

  I handed it to her

  Still beating

  Thumping against the silver platter

  Like a war drum

  She looked me in the eye as she took it

  In one pale hand

  Raised it to her lips and licked the aorta

  Until it throbbed

  “I will consume you whole.”

  She promised.

  The man is the sacrificial lamb in this one.

  I slayed my demons

  With my bare hands

  Stuffed the heads

  And mounted them on my wall