All the little aches we assumed and assuaged.

Healed and opened.

Slowly revealing bruises and pain.

But also, I think:

Ourselves.

Behind the smiles.

Behind the bubbles.

The kisses, too.

We are coy, aren't we?

We said we wouldn’t be mean.

But here we are.

Playing this most dangerous game.

Swearing to do no harm.

Pledging to be real.

It was after all, our muses who caused the bruises.

Buttoned us up.

Now we wear our pretty scarves.

We don't ask.

We watch.

We wait.

Moving at once, then freeze when we see it.

Is this a thaw?

Or it the tingling we feel

At the sensation of crystals,

Consuming our heart’s last cockle?

No.

You are not the apple of my eye;

And therefore, you are not the cause

Of my wayward, wandering woe.

Instead, you are the salt and the sugar I crave.

The relief.

The new poem I wish to write.

All of these poems and more can be found HERE in the anthology “A Cartographer”.