A game of hearts

 

I fell under a black moon.

The sky stained with lost fortunes.

I danced aimlessly into

a game of chance, a game of hearts,

and I lost to you.

You gave me sanctuary

away from the solitaire life.

Free parking when I didn't drive.

But it was all a ruse, a bluff

where the house always wins.

 

And this house was a house of sin.

 

For I never stood a chance.

The game was rigged

when you passed go.

You advanced,

as I slid down through

snaked pathways,

as the slippery ladders were

snatched clean away

from my hands.

 

You risked my heart,

by gambling on my emotions.

You took apart the cards,

picking only the winning ones

from your stacked deck.

You scratched

the scores in illegible

scribble, you made me scrabble

for my scrambled emotions in

a mentally disorganised mind,

feeling I wasn’t an equal player

on this field.

 

"Checkmate"

you state, as I fall

to the cards of fate.

The cards of hate?

 

You rolled all the dice

I just counted

the numbers,

6 6 6

Devilish grin on your face

I couldn’t ever win.

 

Or so you thought.

 

I cast aside the dice.

Instead of anger

I took out my rage on the page.

Not flipping the board,

or flipping you the bird.

I offered my arms open wide

I smiled in your disgrace,

and I said goodbye with a hug

for I wouldn’t keep

playing your games.

Fumbled emotions

 

I fumble with my words

like they are dripping hot coals

over my fingers, I juggle them,

keeping the direct heat

dancing away from me,

but each contact

sears a part of them

to my stripped skin, like a tattoo

or a broken window

to look within.

A letter, a meaning,

a feeling imparted in

the way that they sting. The way they sing.

 

Because the words

I want to say are

that you are beautiful,

in the way a summer

sun kisses the

morning sky every day.

You are a special type of unique.

A one of a kind,

My kind of heart, a heart that

takes me flying,

and to me you are the clouds

that rip apart, delivering

lightning bolts to my heart.

 

So I keep letting my

singed fingers catch,

then release.

Catch,

then release.

A smooth transition

between war and peace.

As my mind is

at constant battle with itself.

The soot on my skin,

fingerprints my thoughts

on every surface I brush,

whilst the searing heat

leaves a scorch mark

upon the sun in a blush.

Dust covers the pages

of my note book,

and my tears run black

under the light of dawn.

 

Because the words

I hold within me, I hold tightly

like I wish to be holding you, for

they are honest and true.

The war in my brain

is just fireworks expressing

their joy at your flame,

and I'd hold the hot coals

like the fires of home,

 because

you are beautiful.

Not just to the eye, but to the mind,

to the heart and to the soul,

to the skin and to the bone.

You are like home, a place

I wish to never leave.

Slipped halo

 

Your halo fell around my neck

to form a noose, devils eyes in

angelic disguise, I fell for the lies.

A wolf in with the sheep,

pulling the wool over my eyes.

You said you only knew love

but your words bled

smoothly into my skin,

oil or balm, or fatal venom.

A judas kiss staining my lips.

 

I hold all the receipts.

Those meals for two.

Those broken promises you swore true.

The smashed temple of our solitude.

As you forced your

words down my throat,

and punched

confetti crosses into

my heart. A cemetery of trust.

 

Black and blue tattooed tears

streaming down my face.

Bruised memories never regain

the same clean relief.

I still hold the belief

in my parting seas, the waves

that will crash creating my story,

but your islands always dammed me.

denying my own shore

where the sun would shine.

Instead guiding me

over brimstone sands.

Where I’d be damned for all time...

 

 

Well no.

I don’t accept this.

 

I take my steps

and walk into the wilderness,

and I find the me that exists

in the atoms of all of us.

 

A temple rebuilt of sand and dust.

 

And in those atoms, I find love.

 

And now I walk head held high

And those stains did fade in time

 

And the heart now beats

at twice the pace it did

when I accepted your lies.