Tea And Stained Glass Sympathy

I am terrified to be vulnerable again,

Protests my soul’s

Battered child;

Can love erase the devil’s palm prints

Stitched around this limping heart?

I’ve tombed myself

In a sun jailed room,

Keyless cathedral

Where recycled trauma bonded visions

Flash digital scars,

Screening sympathy buried scenes

From my faded analogue life.

But I can’t deny

This charmed lapdog dance

Towards your dawning smile,

Obliterating parameters

Made of make believe ghosts,

Arm’s length darkness

And claustrophobic pinch

Entertained for far too long.

So paint lipstick love

Over stained glass sorrow

And let crowing demons

Be downed

And turned inside out,

Cutlass split bones

Now only bird picked memories.

To hell with fear’s straggling horrors.

Hold me.