Mistakes are for beginners, we experts aim for disaster

From the very beginning, he looked like a bad decision some unfortunate soul was about to make. I was always careful to keep a pristine image, taking every precaution to be a good girl.

But sometimes, good wasn’t good enough.

The confusion lay in the forbidden thrill of deviating from the path.

Why did being wicked feel so euphoric?

He pulls his shirt off impatiently, reaching over his head and tugging it up and over with a swift pull. My eyes fasten on the play of muscles underneath his skin as they ripple with each move he makes.

Dragging in a shallow breath, I still as he prowls over to the bed where I sit.

Are you come as lover or executioner?

Fever Dreams

I search for you in my blackest

midnight,

my drunken, misguided North Star.

Born of cunning and velvet

and the spaces between stars,

you were clothed by your maker in all the ways I yearned for you.

Were you a fever dream I restlessly brought forth

or were you sent to torment me

for all my wanton sins?

I’ve repented of each one a thousand times

if only to remove the scent of you from every layer of my skin.

Between pleas flung into the inky night,

I pray,

are you come as my salvation or my ruin?

Eons

The depth of my longing for you 

destroys me.

How do you kill so beautifully?

What madness 

have you lit inside my veins, etching 

my walls and stars with ruin?

I am become the ages

filled with echoes of unfulfilled

desire. 

Yearning for Spring and Other Things

I watch you from afar,
drowning my desire
in the secret places
of my garden.
If I could choose to be a single
bloom in yours,
I’d choose not the heady
rose,
nor the proud, resplendent
lily. No,
I would choose to
be the shyly budding
tulip,
for she does not compete
with any other
for the full weight
of the sun’s hopeless infatuation
with her.

Untamed

You glance my way and

a wild stampede of heartbeats

escapes from within the cage

of my ribs. I cannot seem

to corral my thoughts, they ride

freely upon the rushing horde—

do I hold your gaze or look away?

You laugh at something your

companion says, flashing straight

white teeth like the picket fence

around the garden in my

memories, where we picked sugar

snap peas during lazy summer

afternoons. I catch my breath

and look away, attempt to calm

the trembling of my limbs.