Jealousy. Your voice loud and rhythmic, unceasing, like hornets droning piercing words into ear. You buzz, forging into the depth of my mind. Stinging eruption. To feed you, to return to hive, to calm your fury-dance, I submit to my weakness, my self-doubt, my agony. Submit and release, and whisper across your wings, I am beauty infinite.

Anger. Your drumming eternal. Imploding and exploding simultaneously. Releasing your nectar poison, red army ants feasting on organs. Nibble bite, nibble bite. Appetite continuous circle, no tail, no mouth, only motion. Captive screaming in pain; until released with open arms to the enveloping space. Accept all that enters, so same door may provide exit. To the torture, bid goodbye as lady kisses sailor to sea. To return with gifts and longing, when empty heart is stirred again.

Grief. Your fingers dip inside me, a thirsty stranger reaching in to drink. I am lessened, depleted, dried, and withered, and left again with twisted thoughts of what ifs, where, and when. Now, this moment, no longer exists, only dancing shadows that turn and move wildly in search of clothes they cannot wear and mouths that cannot move. Your voice is shallow. Your echo deep. Penetrating the very essence of my love-filled being. I remove you slowly, through tears, replenish body by giving freely the desired water to earthly dweller.

Remorse. Time is a player. He cascades across hallways of the past. Time playing in time. Not a man, nor woman, not beast, or plant. But an illusion. Some witness of a passing that does not exist. An invisible keeper of invisible existence. Back and back, revisiting the avenues of sadness. Turn back the clock to appease the dragon, only to be set afire. Singed and ash-covered by pretend foe. To return and breathe in emptiness, where cloaked imaginings cannot wander or exist. To arise unscorched like phoenix through forgiving sun. Bid mind’s searching goodbye. Leaning into the hope and promise of new day.

Lust. Awe, sweet angel dressed in black. You feed off of soul. Tempting the temptress, warming the warmer, cascading round pools of opportunity. I see you swerving, a lady of painted words. Come hither forward and fill me true with wishes of what will be, if given chance. Come hither forward, too, and show thy whole self, the aftermath and consequence. The red of what bleeds through when nothing covers soul but enchanting mystery. I give in and feel the eruption, caressing the dreams, only to rise half-full and more hungered. The more you entice, the more I search. Until at last I come home, with appetite for self, moving beyond the promises that hide behind unknown curtains.

Want. I breathe in the sunshine of your valleys, the moon of your sea, the gelatin of bone. I wear you. The finest cloth and richest jewels. I twirl and spin, a child in her dressing game. Giggles of delight. A borrower, a lender not. A giver tainted. A sunlit smile turned over for inspection. Take. Possess. Own. Obtain. Grab. Hoard. Stop. This need. Turn inward to the greatest castles of existence. The mountains filled with treasures buried within the endless soul. Searching not for what is lacking but what is already given. The limitless capacity for growth and transition. The all-encompassing ability to love immensely within an eternity of release.