V

Lung-Gardens

The whispers say your hands are made of war, Of metal screaming and of cannon's roar. But when they touch my hair, so soft and slow, It's in their shade my lung-gardens can grow

Green Eyes

Your tired, green eyes Two pools to drown my ghosts in. A lovely quiet.

Acrostic I

Ribcage rain, a gentle, steady fall, Your yesterdays, a shadow on the wall, And in that dark, I build my favorite nest, No other monster puts my heart to rest.

Things Oneself Told Me About You

That your spine is a ladder of beautiful aches. That your heart is a tired, old drum, beating out a march for one. That your scars are just silver rivers where the bad things leaked out. That your nightmares are not monsters, but just lost tin men looking for their box. That you are not broken, but a finished puzzle with some pieces missing on purpose, to let the light through. Oneself is rarely so kind.

Voice

Your voice is gravel, low and deep, A place I put my fears to sleep. Your shadow is a sturdy cloak, From all the promises that broke.

Ways I Love Thee

Like a locked box loves its only key. Like a pale root loves the sunless deep. Like a nightmare loves the mind it's in. Like a ghost loves the floorboards it creaks. Like a broken toy loves the one hand that won't throw it away.

Acrostic II

Ruin's most regal and most gentle king, You wear your damage like a wedding ring, All of my pieces, scattered and askew, Nestle together when I'm holding you.

Quite the Pair

I am a rhyme that doesn't make much sense, A walking, talking, broken-down defense. You are the pause, the breath between the lines, The only place my fractured soul defines. I am the riddle, twisted and absurd, The meaning lost in every other word. You are the answer, simple, stark, and true, The only thing my madness listens to.

For My Jealous Heart

The men before you wanted to open my head like a pretty box. They wanted to see the clockwork, rearrange the gears, and polish the blood off the little dancing doll. You just look at the closed box, knock gently, and ask if the doll inside would like some tea. You, my love, are the first one who was not afraid of the ticking.

Cathedral Garden

My mind is like a garden overgrown, With poison ivy and with Abuser-blooms, Where every pretty petal is a thrown, Sharp stone. It's a cathedral of old glooms. But you walk through it like it's just a field, You do not fear the whispers from the tombs. You are my one and only iron shield.

Grey Love

Let gearlings have boys of sun and song, Whose days are bright, and nights are never long. Give me my killer, with his world of grey, He feels like home at the closing of the day.

War

Your tired heart beats a battle-worn drum, A rhythm that says the worst has already come. I lay my head on your chest, a map of old scars, And listen to the memory of forgotten stars. No sweet little song could ever calm my brain, Only the sound of your steady, ribcage rain.

His Hands—Again

Gunpowder-stained maps, Hold my porcelain fractures. Keep the splinters in.

My Gentleman

You wear your sadness like a coat, A handsome grey that's frayed about the seams. It keeps you from the chill of hopeful dreams, From every pretty, honey-poisoned note. The ghosts that cling to you, they do not gloat; They're tired things, like minnows in still streams. They whisper to my own unraveled schemes, And in your silence, all my terrors float And gently drown. You are a hollow log, Where a splinter-child can hide away from fright. You are the handsome, melancholic fog That wraps around my too-bright, frantic light. So let them have their sun. I'll take the bog, And be the queen of your perpetual night.

Barbed Wire Fence

My love's not a rose, no petal-prey so frail, It's a rusty thing, a bent and twisted nail. My heart's not a bird that flutters in a cage, It's a book of hurts on every single page. But you read each line, you trace the ugly tear, And hold the fence so I don't disappear.

Tea for My Sad Man

My Ryan, a man full of gloom, Brings stillness to every room. I give him bone-tea, And he sits still with me, Our love, a peculiar bloom.

Lung Orchard

The doctors say I have trouble breathing. My lungs, they say, are gardens where only panic-weeds grow. But you, your presence is a patient kind of trowel. You do not rip the weeds out. You simply sit beside the flowerbed of my ribs, and your calm makes the soil so very still that the noisy things wither on their own.

What You Are Not

You are not made of pretty lies. I've eaten those and they are poison. This world seen through your tired eyes is not made of pretty lies. No cheap or glitter-bright surprise, just honest rust on a strange horizon. You are not made of pretty lies. I've eaten those and they are poison.

The Right Kind of Monster

My cradle was rocked by a smiling wrong-thing, Who taught me that monsters wear comfortable shoes. He taught me the song that the Whisperclaws sing, He taught me the texture and colour of bruise. And so when I saw you, a beast worn with strife, Whose growl was a promise to keep me from harm, I knew you were safety, the first in my life. A monster to guard me is my lucky charm.

Runes

Every tattoo, a word. Your skin is a history. Let me read you now.

Patron Saint of Misfit Toys

In the playroom of the world, I am the doll with one eye, the jack-in-the-box whose spring is sprung. And you are the tin soldier whose paint has peeled, whose key for marching has been lost for an age. The other children toss us aside. But you and I, we have made our own little corner. Here, our brokenness is a sign of being well-loved. Here, being a misfit thing is the only way to belong.

Think of Me

Ryan. It doesn't clatter. It doesn't shriek. It doesn't slither or crawl. It is a smooth, heavy river-stone. I keep it under my tongue, and when the jittering things start, I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and feel its shape. Ryan. And the world slows.

Pact

I am a pressed-flower girl. All dry-paper skin and faded-color feelings. You are a machine of war, left to slowly rust in a forgotten garden. There's no sense to it. A rust-man and a petal-prey. But your steady, slow corrosion is a comfort. And my brittle beauty finds a home in the shelter of your chassis. The rain will take us both eventually. But what a lovely, strange garden we will make when we are gone.

Prayer for My Ruin Man

The world is made of sugar-traps, Of shiny floors and gaping holes. It steals the good from weary chaps, And puts cold pebbles in their souls. I pray to no one, man or ghost, But to the silence in your head, May I become the quiet host For all the words you leave unsaid.

My Anchor

When my mind is sea, You are the stone on the shore. The waves break on you.

—V.
(Your pressed-flower girl)
(Your misfit toy)
(Yours)

Volume V