Almond Seed Heart

I love like an almond tree

It’s birthed from a hidden seed.

And to only the patient

Can I reveal the hearty earth

In which I keep it.

And if his amour is real

With due care

It’ll grow. And in due season

One will reap it.

My love is like an almond tree.

It rewards those who know

Loving some women

Is a man’s most arduous task.

But inside hard outer casings

Can be the sweetest essence

And the richest oil of joy.

It’s worth the anointing

If you have the time to endure

Until the almond seed blossoms.

(This was written from the Poetry Jam prompt of 'almonds.' This is definitely not my best work, but I really did want to try the prompt, to push myself.)

Happiness (Poets United prompt)

But you never told me

Where I was to find this ‘happiness’

I so wanted.

I looked hard to uncover it

I searched for it beneath duvets

Betwixt the pages of dusty prayer books.

Tin cans of potions

Which left cotton behind my eyes.

I travelled in all directions of the compass

But no amount of orienteering revealed

Where this elusive fruit grew.

Until I met a man

With eyes so old and soft

They reminded me of God.

I asked him

He had not much. But time.

I could tell he knew.

So I asked him to show me

Where they cultivate this treasure.

He put a spindly finger to my temple.

Then waved it across the vista before us.

And sang

Happiness is found in opening your eyes wide in gratitude

Further and further

For all of this.

Your Soul is a Work of Art

Don’t feel less than anything.

Merely because your skin does not shine evenly like polished boughs.

Your teeth are not all twinned.

Your contours are not what you would have

If it were you who had fashioned your own visage from soft clay.

Don’t feel less.

They’re invisible to me anyway.

I’ve already been blinded by your soul.

And staggered by your heart.

Your essence has me in a stupor.

You are a work of art.

God furnished you with beauty

To tear me all apart.

I can’t continue with my deadened days the same.

Your soul is a work of art.

And I can tell you don’t see it.

That uncertainty that’s always in your eyes tell me

You always wonder if you’re doing anything right.

And I don’t know how to tell you

You change everything around you, like a light.

Now I don’t have the courage

But one day we’ll sit and I’ll tell you the ending from the start

You’ve turned all this into a gallery

And your soul is my favourite work of art.

My Place

You’ve held me in all my darkest turns.

You’re the comfort to which I continually resort.

You hide me when trials of fire come and burn.

With you lie my freshest tears and deepest thoughts.

This may be why I hold so fast to you, when I should be leaving instead.

And when I do, I’m yearning to be back, secured and warm. I long after you.

Bed.

Your First Time

I wish I was there to pry his reptilian fingers away

When they slid round your unready frame.

I wish I had told you.

This time isn’t the right one.

 Wait first ‘til you’ve unearthed a treasure.

Someone who knows your form is a temple for love.

Not an ornament for his basest ego.

And I would tell you this

Not because you must fashion and maintain

A facade of ‘innocence’, as this world loves.

But because your body is your own prize. Not his.

It is for you to cherish and teach others how to.

But even if I had spoken, you would not hear me

Because this is a world that eats diamonds. And souls

And it shouts loudest with its demands.

Mine is already half consumed. I’ve accepted

Our daughters could be giants.

But they must bow down.

To fit in.

Eve

The sight of those who know love for you

Was misted. And to their tongues you tasted

Something like perfection.

And born through all this adoration

Is a life furnished with every verdant and beautiful gift.

You had everything.

And to him you were everything.

Truly mother of all the spoiled and beautiful,

You wanted for nothing. Yet you wanted everything.

And with all ten fingers you felt for

A semblance of something

To appease that deep deceptive hunger

That all your daughters know.

And the hunger ate you alive.

He blamed you.

Now they blame your daughters for everything

When they fall.

They blame you for what they feel.

That their thirst for you leads them
To pools of madness.

They blame you for the stirring of desire.

A twisted game of shame.

They blame you

As though self-control is a myth.

And it's you who has spiked 'strong' minds with love

Or something like it.

Poor Eve

You were always easiest to blame.

Love of the 'Ordinary'

Life was a whirling mess of city lights

And pay-check shackles.

I began to forget myself.

When the cracks had finally worked their way

To my core

I realised I was wholly broken.

And it freed me.

I left my little space

Walked out.

Walked out and neared myself to the ground.

I smelled warmth and grass

Played in it with my fingers.

I felt home.

I saw the sky

I was arrested by its comfort.

The air moved like a kiss

I began to cry.

I admired the small birds above me

And apologized

Like an adulterous love begging forgiveness.

I’m sorry I neglected  you.

This whole and perfect beauty.

I lay there until evening fell

And I grovelled to the stars.

Please take me back.

I’m so ashamed.

I let the noise of concrete lies

Drown out the sound of your everyday love song

For me.