October 24th, 2017

Bleed

Widening the world of want on
Traitorous skin
Basking in your briefest kindness,
Your robust smile. 
My ample mind in eager, bouncing ripples. But our
Scattered teeth chop words into slabs
Far from the sweet treats
We once enjoyed;
How we tasted each other. 
Alas - 

Stained and brittle years. I cashed all
My chips for your smile!
You had no idea that I
Lived for your touch;
Your gaze. Your voice.
Grasping tendrils of your thoughts.
I was the one who mattered. Didn't I
Matter to you, then?
Now

Here we are - 
I am
Professional. Delicate. Precise. Imaginative. Bruised. Abbreviated.
That giddy girl gone; Sacrificed
Under the brace of Love.
You, who could not speak the
Language of her eyes and hair and skin; So tender
Playful eloquence. She waited for you.

Your weak shoulders
Surly, far away eyes; sneering, lumbering. But
I was the strong one -
Strong enough to walk away; Worn and dripping.
How I wanted to stay!
Tangled in your fingertips. Breathing your neck, your hollow words.
Staring expectantly into dark eye caverns. 

Wet, stringy veins bleeding each
Footstep. Slipping as I
Ran from you but never far enough. O you
You had a hook in me. Rusted leather chains,
Iron shackles, silver weighted pulleys
For decades arms and back and thighs woven into you. My

Fortress razed. Capitulated.
I was strong, you said. Strong enough to harness a headwind.
It was not a compliment.
Still, I needed you to hold me. Instead,
You watched me bleed. 

JFH (c) 10.22.2017 [Rev. 10.27.2017]
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