I don’t think my father, the inventor of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, would be too pleased to hear about this.

she was autumn, made from spun gold and rubies and winds that bit but soothed the pain with kisses. she was autumn, and like the leaves, she fell. she exhanged her kirtles for garters, her sceptre for high heels, her crown for heartbeats fluttering in her palm. she swallowed down the lion and became instead a huntress— growing claws from her fingernails and sinking her teeth into the lips of her prey. she claims heady prayers for her hunt, she rips open their ribcage to kiss their heart. invitations drop like seed helicopters onto her doorstep and her battledress has shifted from mail to nylons, coating her so that when boys move in their skin slices. once a queen ruling with white hands and blue eyes, she now watches with scars and chanel no. 5. her castle was taken from her, and so she has built one on shattered concrete, anew. they called her gentle. they had never before tasted their grave in someone else’s mouth. she was the autumn, she was the gold and the red and the winds, and this was her kingdom. the lion had given her a taste for blood, and her arrows never miss.

I found my faith not on my knees not touching wafer-thin pages. I found it in a gallery his holy pain contorted in paint,  I saw the snapped off arrow-heads, embedded in his thighs, and how his martyrdom looked like bliss. I read of him tracing his name with my profane fingers wondering what a love like flint would feel like to a sinner. Wash his feet with blood,  wash his name with canvas -  I picture the painters paintbrushes held taunt a bow string.

I wish you understood that you are a star that what I see when I look at you is everything we could be, is the brightest version of me and when you grin at me that burning smile that speaks of power I know that believing in something just got easier the world made me war-torn and raw this universe let my heart grow fragmented  but sometimes the constellations intervene  because they let my heart fall into your gentle hands and every time you spoke my name oh, the empty space in my chest got a little bit fuller