The tendons strained as muscles tensed
Hind legs wobbled in impatient anticipation
The prey grazed slowly upon springs bounty
A twig snapped sounding natures alarm
Crows called cooing caws as they took wing
A ****** predicting the coming violence
The die having been cast elicited a roar
Potential energy unleashed sprang an ambush
Teeth and claws punctured and lacerated flesh
Jaws clenched throat choking life from limb
Latent spasms birthed pleasurable moans
The irony of blood tasted copper coins
As stipes became lost in red matted fur
The **** draining the thrill of the hunt
While the tiger ate his fill

It starts like a whisper
threadbare promises,
soft hands hiding clenched fists
beneath the skin, bruises bloom quietly,
seeds of silence sowed in the dark corners of a home.

A smile fractured at the edge,
where love's architecture crumbles,
and the voice that was once free
is twisted into the shape of a question:
Am I not enough?

A door slams, not in anger
but in fear.
The echo swells in the bones,
stays in the walls,
turns a house into a prison
where every footstep is weighed with caution,
a rhythm of dread,
beating louder than the heart.

The world outside spins on,
but inside; there is no time,
no refuge, no escape.
Even sleep is just another war fought alone,
dreams choked by the shadow creeping
over pillowcases and quiet sighs.

And yet,
the grasp tightens with a smile.
It is tender, this violence,
a slow suffocation dressed as affection,
coated in apologies that evaporate
before they touch the air.
It doesn't arrive with storms,
but with lullabies that cut deeper
than screams ever could.

What is love in a house that forgets
the meaning of sanctuary?
Where the windows close
to keep the world out
and the mirrors crack
under the weight of too many lies told in silence?

It hides in plain sight,
in the slow erosion of spirit,
in the small sacrifices of self
until nothing remains but an echo,
a ghost tethered to the earth by fear,
too afraid to walk into the light
and too tired to fight the shadows
that cling like a second skin.

And the world wonders:
Why didn't they leave?
But it's not the leaving
it's the unraveling.
Each thread of identity,
each step towards the door,
pulls against a gravity that speaks
in the quiet voice of terror:
You'll never make it out.
You're already gone.

Still, in the deepest night,
there's a flicker, a spark,
a refusal to be fully extinguished.
The insidious grasp weakens,
as the heartbeat that remains
remembers its strength,
knows that hands meant to hold
do not leave scars.

And someday,
a door will open.
The house will breathe again,
and the quiet will become
a sanctuary once more.

Tonight, I dreamed of killing someone
While lying, awake, in my bed.
I grabbed at his neck,
And bruised up his flesh-
My hands shook, as I wanted him dead.

I tore at his eyes,
I called out his lies,
And now here I am breaking lead.

I bit at his wrists,
As his hands turned to fists
From the anger his body was fed.

Tonight, I dreamed of killing someone
Who failed his attempt at controlling me.
So I picked up this book,
And the red lights I took,
And stopped the shaking with poetry.

We chose to be caught,
Swirling in this vortex,
With our crystalline eyes
Closed, or open—

innocence,
violence.

I remember clearly,
A flirt. A touch. A kiss.
I flew with my mind,
I loved it wet—

but you couldn’t love it then,
you couldn't even hate it,
you hate it now, looking back

We found ourselves
Spinning in the spiral
Of something we chose—
It was our own will,
Unbreakable by anyone,

though it had happened before:
you were torn apart like paper.

and now you are here,
gluing with gold the shattered pieces

Of the beautiful being you are,
Of the beautiful thing you swear to be,
Of the beautiful child you see,
When you look into the mirror
With your eyes wide open.

We have left our past completely behind
No longer able to live in the present
Always looking for something new to find

We've burned our history and its branches that extend
Say we cherish the tree as we bite into its burning apple
And cut it down every day, with no end

We give our attention to a small thing for a day, like the apple now rotten
But the next day our focus will have decreased
And by a year it will be completely forgotten

As a society, we are forced to move on
And wander away from everything we loved
And everything you hold dear is now long gone

We swear, but can't bear the remembrance of all
We lie, we try to forget the small
We leave, we grieve to solely grow tall

And we break, we take from the world we've won
We'd stop admiring, and firing a book rather than a gun
And we've chased, and replaced, to get closer to the sun

And we've forever been progressing, moving farther and farther away
That now, in the end, not even time will be there to stay

Considering hostility
    I feel violent.
Considering wonder
    I am awed.

I heard a French widow
say that there is
someone in each of us
    who loves
and someone in each of us
    who kills.