​to cage a bird

A serpent stirs beneath my ribs, a silent, slithering thing, Its fangs are smiles you share with them, its coils and to you it clings. Each stolen glance, a searing brand, a flicker of what’s not mine, A ravenous hunger in my gut for what should be entwined.

I swallow down the venomous tide, the urge to lash and tear, To cage you in a gilded hell, a love both fraught and rare. My tongue a weapon, sheathed and cold, for fear its barbs take flight, And wound the fragile, fleeting thing I cherish through the night. This jealous feast, a private war, I wage within my soul, A battlefield of bitter ash, where reason loses hold.

I dream of fractured constellations, where starlight turns to ash, To claim the love you offer them, and leave their world to crash. But locked within this poisoned cage, I choose a silent plight, A festering wound of what I love, to gnaw away at night.