What love, if not mine, could burn as bright? Rubbed smooth against hesitant skin. Your bird of prey in wartime flight, rogue hearts conjoined as twins. The rituals of bacchanal praise, wild worship worn in wound, drunken nights and fasting days, self-flagellation etched in runes. Devotion chanted in my head with every offering made. From…

You seek a love patterned in roses that tremble at a touch and open and close in tune as you bud and bloom in crowded rooms. My love would prune—young buds in sharp blood. Blind roaming eyes and pierce wandering palms that stop for a moment’s curiosity. You do wrong to seek freedom in a…