Page 6 of King of Iron Hearts
Are you
And
me
You were born a pretty fish
Put into a pretty bowl
To swim around looking pretty
For the rest of eternity
What would happen if the glass smashed?
Would you grow lungs and legs
Deformed, but free?
Or die
So pretty
In the glistening glass?
I was born in a stinking mire
But I made it into compost
Took sustenance from the refuse and rooted in the soil
It was on the filth of my mistakes
That I rose to the greatest of heights
And I was all the stronger for it
If you succumb to the heat
You will melt to your core
And nothing is ever as strong as something
Forged from fire.
She was a witch, a bitch and a cold-hearted queen.
She was a witch
Made of magic I wanted to shape in my hands
A force so great I shuddered at her power
And reverently learned the shape of each spell
So I might wield her.
She was a bitch
More magnificent than any woman I had ever met
Because she liked her world cold and anti-septic clean.
They judged her for that and her words
The way they hit their targets
Precisely
Rat tat tat
A semi-automatic weapon with a chamber of red lips.
She was a cold-hearted queen
Who ruled without aid from a throne she made herself
In a kingdom of steel towers and glass ceilings
That she punctured with the lance of her ambition
And watched crumble to dust beneath her stiletto heels
She was a witch, a bitch, and a cold-hearted queen.
Sticks and stones would never break her bones.
(It was easier to hate her than submit an application to be loved by her)
The witchcraft of womanhood
I sipped from the chalice
Sweet moonlight down my throat
Silky and silver as the ribbon of water
Sewn through the moss-covered ground
At my bare feet
I danced over the green mottled earth
Wet mud sucking at my toes
Packed earth vibrating with the kick drum beat
Of the revellers circling the fire
At my naked side
Women revolve around the flames
Leaping through the sparks
They chant in one voice like an echo
That emanates from the earth
The howl of wolves
In the dark bowl of night
Echoes eerie
Like a gong struck in my chest
They call to me
And naturally
I follow
A girl is a weapon
Whether or not she knows how to wield her power
Is another question entirely
I don’t want to give you the world.
I can’t afford a diamond ring or a house so high on a hill.
I can’t take you on a trip or pay your way through school.
But…
I can give you something I’ve been aching to give
Since I first saw you so confused on my stoop
A child without a dream
You see,
I can give you you.
Let the love of your life be the woman looking back at you in the mirror.
She is your best friend forever and your tireless champion,
If only you’ll give her words to speak and the power to be
Seen.
Sometimes the only lesson you learn
Is from a mistake
Not worth making again.
You can’t light a fire without kindling.
The scraps and waste of life that didn’t work out
That tore strips off your soul
And ripped through your defences?
Those are your tinder to light your dreams on fire.
I love with my whole soul
But the weight of that love is too much for some.
They drop it in the dirt.
Trip over it as they run away.
One day,
I hope I find someone Atlas strong enough
To hold it up.
You broke her.
So I took her and taught her how to fill her cracks with gold.
She is tangled up in his dangerous love
Wrapped in the yarn of his malicious lies
Like a fly trapped in a cotton web
I want to be the shears that cut her free
I’m a night person
Because she works at the 24/7 diner
Off exist 99
I’m a pie person too
Because it’s the only edible thing they serve
She was deep dark waters
And I was never taught how to swim
I was afraid of her sharks and currents
The absolute blackness at her depth
But as I watched
She tossed and churned
Eternally turbulent and ill at ease
So, I took the chance to soothe her peaks
And dove right in head first.
Love is sink or swim.
Who told you
You were hard to love
And what made you
Think that was a horrible thing?
Everything hard is worth having
We spend our entire lives
Doing the hard things to survive
I will tell you now
I can survive your love
And I want to
What makes you tremble
Alone in the dark
What is the stuff of the nightmares
You imagine at midnight
Let me know all those things you fear
So that I might slay them
Even while you dream
I would break my own heart a million times over
If it meant keeping you safe
From a million heartbreaks of your own
She was a live wire I wanted to hold in my hands
Take her electricity between my teeth
And feel her currents race along my skin
She was the shock I needed to come alive
Touch me
And
I burn
A lit match to dry timber
The press of your lips on my skin
Douses me like amber liquor
And up I go
In flames
Baby girl
Don’t think
I’ll forget that beneath the sting
Of angry bees
You taste as sweet as honey
Her beauty lay
