Your Darkness

Are you just out of mind? Or have
you lost bed, too?
I’ll lay you down with straw and
help catch your rogue.

The passage to sleep
is in a cottage, as bare
as birthed privates, down a
cottaged street. The seeker has treats
in that darkness! The darkness
where we meet.

You collected loneliness
in places that I jog in. I
watched you paint,
I watched you slice your flesh
with window,
I watched you crawl under his
sheets at night, to
ward off  the darkness.

Still it comes, a happy thief,
painted like a victim,
no matter your age, it never will
outgrow you.
Though, your flowers bloom and
your pumpkins grow,
though you scrub light into
your palms,
it never will outgrow you.

I taught you a language, a long time ago, a
protection from the shadows,
before sun marked your
pale skin,
before your lips touched a sugar breast,
you were my garden,
you were my flower;
a light, all of your own, to light your darkness.