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