if i could i’d
take back these words and
be the first to apologize when
it’s not your fault.

desolate grounds
call to a mob of flowers
to bask in blood
shed by dogs of war.
the gates of hell have
been thrown wide open for
the passing of the whore,
and she enters these
fiery halls with
such grace; such beauty;
but the passion is gone from
new eyes carved from ice.
wings, once feathered and pure,
droop as naught but bones;
and how might they find her heart
but in tidy shreds,
the remnants of her own
barbed words?
her suitors are oblivious,
driven on by the scent of
a wounded angel;
but they cannot see
what she takes as truth.
but just the same,
she knows herself as blind
for whose eyes are these
but a pair borrowed
from a tender-hearted basilisk?
there’s an envy driven on
in the marrow of her bones.
if she could, she’d suck out
the soul of her kinsman
if only to know
what it is
to breathe freely
and love deeply
and never want again.