witchingours

[witchingours]

Demand

When it comes to introspection I know it can be painful, that's why I put myself to task holding my hands to the flame until the searing and the burning purged what was totally toxic, but you don't want to hear it when I'm being honest. You take a shot at me like it's your job to be defensive. I don't know why you got so offended, when attacking you is not something I had intended. Played it back just in case I missed it, but the voice in your head is the one who meant it.

Did I ask you to fall on the blade? or did I come to you bleeding asking if you're ok?

Did I cross a line to two? or did I just want to know if you would do for me as I have done for you?

Up all night until I see the day, asking myself why I let you treat me this way, but if hurt if the heat of love, then you've taken it and run it back to where it came from. I won't go back to that place. I've proven in the fire long enough to escape and if that means loving you is sometimes pain, I'll take it and wait it out until your ready for flames.

[witchingours]

Want

come here

and be seen

identified

perceived

consumed.

Come here because the sound of singing

has made you curious about the night. Hold out your hand as the high notes seize you

spear you

and upon the the pyre she sees you

hears you.

the damage is done. she’s coming

for you. with a want greater than dawn on the horizon

with a deeper need than the swell of your body

Who knows the feel of your teeth? who knows the heat of your blood?

Come here

and lay yourself on the altar

supplicant

sanctified

worshipful

come here because the sound of singing

Calls you like a holy knight,

your oath is sworn,

your duty honor-bound,

open up your heart

and let her live in the sound.

[witchingours]

A Wreck

Violence was part of my life, but does that make it tied to my nature?

Is it a crisis we can see coming but can not resist?

If I can't get up,

who is to blame?

Is it my father's hatred of women?

Is it my mother's additiction?

Is it my sister's venom, after all this time?

Is it my brother, where has he gone?

Is it my step-mother and her burning ire?

Is it the woman without an easy label, who stole my girlhood from me?

Am I a rat?

It's been long enough for my fur to dry after the ship sank and yet somehow I survived.

That wasn't the plan. That wasn't my intention.

I would have died with the rest of them.

But somehow the people I met said "you may be dead but you're still walking."

Walking away.

So on my hands and feet I scurried, carrying disease, I slipped in between,

the sinking ship and

the tossing sea.

I slipped away because on the shore they said "live god dammit" even as the screams faded behind me.

[witchingours]

The cold reminds me that I am warm, hot, alive.

my breath fogs the air because I am warm, hot, alive.

The universe is cold. frozen, for the most part, I hear, except for the rare pockets of heat, stolen from the start of all things. captured from the hearts of stars.

you are a rare pocket of heat.

you are the rare heart of a star.

fighting fighting fighting

with every cell in your body and every atp respiration reaction in those tiny cells

you are fighting the heat death of the universe.

you are warming the chill of the night.

and the space between us is maybe not as cold.

Step out into the wind with me On this frozen night That bears no snow

Do you know the meaning Of the cold? Do you know what it offers us?

Take my hand, you are safe Feel the subzero gust Feel the way it burns your face

I am shivering right beside you Are you alive Like I am on an icy evening?

[witchingours]

The Moon

At times there is something more honest in the darkness

than the deceptive reflections of pale moonlight.

The sun is meant to bring joy to those who turn to it,

but it is too bright for my gloam adjusted eyes.

It hurts somewhere deep inside,

to see the calling card of brilliant sunlight,

maybe shame is only painful under the scrutinizing heat.

the moon commiserates,

and as a mercy, hides

the shadows smooth and simplify

the beauty is in the ambiguity of the night

[witchingours]

My love, where do you go?

When you're all alone inside that iron skin,

do you retreat to safer shores

far from the abrasion of my ocean waves?

The saltwater overtook my home

it soaked my eyes and bleached my bones

and now leaving bruises on your skin

seems all I am able to do.

Do you need a way out?

Do you need me to invite you to it?

a funeral, a mercy kill, an execution, a parade

whichever it is to be, I refuse to hide and deny the truth.

Come out of there, that steel hide, that iron side, that skin so hard that sinew so stiff.

Come out of there and fight if that's what you really want.

Fight the fear for my selfish wish

Fight the despair inherent in

Fight me, if you must,

but get out here and fight me yourself.

Like the brazen fool who promised me their arms could hold an ocean swell.

Don't tell me you're not equal to it.

I've been weighing and measuring and swimming and wading.

I know sinking when I see it and I know sailing.

My Love, where do you go?

when there is distance in your voice and the echoes of something unsaid resound in the silence between words,

when you're ready to let the shame of it go,

let me know

when

you'll be ready to come home,

let me know

when

you're ready to let me in,

I'll rust the iron from within

until this heart is red and

beating again.

[witchingours]

Hard to Love

The hardness of the stone is measured by abrading it against another of known value. Whichever is able to scratch the other is considered the harder of the two.

They rake their tender claws against my sharpened ribs.

They swear there is a heart in my chest

that surely belongs to them.

But I am hard to love.

Resistant to affection.

They broke their sharp edges on me like waves against a seaside cliff. Filed them down to dazzling facets and left when they realized I am too hard to love. Too much work to move. Only useful for the labor of preparing them for another more malleable setting.

but under the pressure, in the darkness and heat of where I was born, I could not survive the generations of solid stone pressing down, without grieving the death of my softer self.

She died screaming, torn up, bleeding,

accusing me of betrayal and though I tried to deny it I looked down and in my hands I was holding the knife. It was self defense. It was either die as her or live as me. but maybe I got it twisted.

that's certainly what they called me.

Every turn down the halls of this haunted house is known to me,

but they never stayed long enough to let me teach them the way.

What they really meant was I am strange to them,

difficult to understand.

but also not worth the effort

or perhaps not worth the risk.

They meant i am hard to love.

and they are right.

My love has the transformative power of molten metal and stone. There is nothing that it can not temper or mold. No force with such potential should be leveraged on whim. If another is to wield this power, it shouldn't be handed over so easily.

No. It must be won by someone worthy, so that little girl didn't die in vain.

I am hard to love because I won't let it be used as a weapon to fatally wound me ever again.

I am hard to love

[witchingours]

Consumption

I wasn’t allowed to eat at the dinner table,

they said learn how to speak, how to stay quiet, how to chew softy.

they said get up off all fours, shave, pluck, straighten your unruly hair, your soft animal fur. Squeeze into these clothes even if you have to cut off some pieces of yourself so the zipper will close and not a single strap will show.

they said: there now, finally you deserve to eat.

and I said “thank you” and smiled while pushing the food around my plate.

until my bones started showing and they told me I was gnashing my teeth

until I was starving and they told me I bite the hand that feeds

But I say their hands deserve to be bitten if they also use them to hold me down while I bleed.

I ran away thinking I’d rather eat on the run, from dumpsters and leftovers and single ramen cups, than starve at a table where we consume each other and ourselves.

I ran away thinking I’d rather be alone. Than let them destroy me and feed off my bones

I ran away thinking I’d rather be alone. Than let myself destroy someone perfect

I’d get a taste of the love I could never afford, get addicted and greedy and drink down more and more

I’d bite and I’d rend through sweet tender flesh, to fill my aching insides until nothing is left

they tried to train me to be domesticated but some kids can’t be fixed that’s just how I was made

but if I keep being fed I’ll keep coming around. The more love I am given the harder it goes down.

until I can’t swallow even a small touch or remark. Until the very sentiment makes me nauseous and I spit out all I’ve done.

and I run.