The roses arrived on fire, tips burnt out sunset mirrors.
I am read, opened like a diary
At the threshold
they turn me,
Him already there,
waiting.
She succumbed
and fell beneath the parchment and pen.
Her eyes emptied.
Her mouth forgot to crack open.
The woman I was is used to this.
Tree roots need to eat.
My heart is lifted from its hanging room.
Offered up to Anubis,
hemorrhaging love and dead hopes.
Even the feather feels heavy.
He sees me. He knows me.
Light stretching shadow-lines
over your body.
The faintest glimmer,
eye whites, catchlights.
My mouth takes your shape
as my heart blooms open.
Nails burn my skin.
Prayer fills my throat,
no word, no thought,
only nature’s ask and want.
We blend, skin to skin,
creating shapes,
hues that reveal,
Gravity came for me
fear tipping my skin cold
my mind on fire
my name peeled away
love charred to ash
sense made nothing anymore
I did not find any rope
on the way down
If I had
the knot would have slipped
my fingers would have missed
I learned how to disappear
before I ever learned how to rise
Sekhmet’s gaze finds me.
Anger consumes me.
Her hair, electric, snapping,
mine static, rising.
My head bows in submission,
fear my rage would be judged,
felt as weakness within me.
She lifts my chin,
kisses my forehead,
a rush rips me open into laughter.
Madness erupts through me.
My womb aches, alive,
pain stopping my hand
before it harms,
before it degrades me.
Her breath moves over me,
a roar in my throat
tearing it wide.
Gold dust
fills
hair,
eyes,
mouth.
I am contained.
I inhabit this body.
I burn.
My eyes gleam.
My throat calls.
My hair lifts, charged.
A lioness lives in my belly.
The clover patch at night
bends beneath stars.
Shadows, dark and sweet,
shaped heart-wild,
fairies biting and pinching,
dancing their trio of leaves,
tiny foot-paws soft against soft.
Eyes that flint
with an edge of insanity.
Worshipping the small, delicate
the secret nectar
of the magic hour.
Off with my head.
Energy reroutes
to stalk and root,
drinking strong and deep,
feeding
diligently.
I live.
I grow.
It is nature.
Grief gathered me to my heart.
Reminded me clocks die.
Love keeps longer than we do.
In that wake of earth,
heaped soil
crowned by flowers, pure blood-red.
My heart breathed,
quaking open.
You and me
spilled out
my eyes,
mouth,
and womb.
My knees were meant to hit earth.
Mercy rose in my tears.
Grace,
the spine of gratitude.
Faithful to Loki first
heart pinned between us
Love’s colors returned to my skin
sun’s gold warms me
unfolding from violet ink
Gasping in air after drowning.