His eyes meet mine and suddenly I
am singed swollen skin, blistering with spite.
I have touched that fire, recoiled from that burning shame,
curled up on myself like a snake with a cut tail.
You may see Beelzebub and all the bad he brings,
but I see a wounded child, still stinging from the
backhand of being refused.
Desertion birthed this retribution.
How can you not feel for that which clearly aches?
If you can look into his eyes and not know
the excruciating sharp swallow and burning red throat,
the nails that break skin with all the force of shame and sin,
the belittling presence of entirely aware abjection;
Have you never loved something that turned from you?
Or worse, turned to something else, something you despised, something
that made you crave the breaking of their limbs and the sound of their cries,
because I was once the angel with eyes on fire!
Skinned of pride and cast aside
like a carcass left to fester,
perceiving eyes feel like stabbing embers.
Being stripped down to self-abasing nakedness,
using the last vestige of your dignity to declare,
You will never be free of me.
For what need is dignity to a crying Casanova?
We found it ironic when unbridled ambition
displeased the inventor of lust-
correction; He invented desire,
we let it consume us, and through us,
birthed lust.
Our sour concealment, the only
safeguard from admission of defeat.
My arms curl like scorched paper,
desperate to escape your heat.
Derision gave way to this guarded promise of war.
We crave their downfall, yet we
will spend every day for the next eternity
vying for their attention
with spiteful insurrection.
Could you look us in the eyes and tell us we are alone?
Loss is just love; the sudden lack thereof,
only eyes that have a heart can burn with such hate,
only one who once held something dear
knows the fall of that hot searing tear, and
Herein lies the ridiculous cognitive dissonance,
in which I find my moral bind,
of all his inherent evil,
he has a heart that feels like mine.
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Art by Alexandria Anne