Supplicant
How violent the hope of love can be.
I walked out into that crepuscular light,
watched the fragrant thyme flowers spread,
their picnic blanket flared across the grass,
cool, refreshing as a change of habit.
Violet petals, like thin slips of lovers, fall
in millions along the road. How many
leave home to offer their hearts,
losing themselves completely to the first
one who blows kisses or their mind?
We walk on, walk on, reach the lips
of the abyss, the dark windows of the soul.
We all fall. I felt so awful,
needed to apologize for my hunger,
my lust for love. I was hooked
on the getting and using
and finding ways and means
of getting more. Love.
let me count the ways
I wanted, needed, lived to suffer.
To feel desperate, crushed, manic
To bare my chest to the wounds
To receive that raw buzz not contained by skin
To utter all the oaths that rode up my gullet
To earn my very own purple heart
That blood-seeking,
blood-sucking, blood-boiling
tick tick tick tick of each and every day.
Oh how I prayed, Lord,
make me the shrapnel of your love.