The lassos fly in the air to catch you and pull you back into the pit. “Dance for me,” the captors say, stealing your clothes to replace them with a tunic and leather pads. No sword and shield to arm you. Just straps of sandals on skin tanning in the unyielding sun. Dance for the … Continue reading Song of the Gladiator
Category: Adversity
Tame Your Rabbit
I am an avalanche in need of containment. A horse in need of harnessing to truly run free. A wild bunny, frightened and feral, eating all the flowers and wrecking the yard. I run out of food. What good is a dam if it doesn’t direct the river to slow for the beaver’s pond? What … Continue reading Tame Your Rabbit
To Bare the Light
All the monsters in the corners of your mind come out to seek the light in my soul. They greet me with a smile when they encounter the shine, and shriek back when the core of love flares.Loveless creatures rage in the face of tenderness, aching from the contrast of softness against their exoskeletons of … Continue reading To Bare the Light
Cup of Life
TRIGGER WARNING: This poem may contain content that brings up unhealed material in those with trauma. Please take care when reading this and make sure you have supportive help to assist in your process when needed. What tragedy to be marked when scars become a part of you, like a different heart or lungs: a … Continue reading Cup of Life
Dream Girl
Engaging with the outside world falls away like shells of walnuts cracked apart for the prize within. Could this be the skin of my serpent soul sloughing off in the violence needed for me to be truly free? To release the dead and dying threads binding me for ages so I may finally live? To … Continue reading Dream Girl
The Withering Prize
How can I be loved when my face ages so fast and I disintegrate every day? The lines are deeper today, like my years are writing themselves more assuredly into my skin, like they are convinced we belong together after all. A tattoo of commemoration, the shadow of The Crone cast upon me. The promise … Continue reading The Withering Prize
Fragile Feathers
My head feels so heavy for my body. His body feels too heavy for his soul. And here we are, toiling through life, waiting for heaven, lamenting all in contrast with that likeness. How do we have it in us to keep reaching for paradise when it’s been lost for so long? His wings are … Continue reading Fragile Feathers
The Shape of My Love
This is the shape of my love, to fall at your feet, Darling. To open like a rose in the spring sunlight, or an ever unfolding lotus in the marsh for you.For I am a beggar, starved and parched in the barren lands of indifference. Too long have I wandered in the desolation who's only … Continue reading The Shape of My Love
My Master, the Blade
How I’ve changed my life to accommodate you. I’ve purchased apparatus to allay you, contain you, and even restrain you. But you are insidious and wild, resourceful. I wrestle you for my power but you take it from my fragile, quaking hands. You find a way to root in me, make me a slave, unwilling. … Continue reading My Master, the Blade