Once Upon A Stony Heart Poem by Leria Hawkins

Once Upon A Stony Heart
Date: August 25,2014

…and I am hungry
for so much more than the scant offerings
flung unrestrained into the midnight sun.
But I sip the wine, bitter on my tongue,
and chew the stale lines of hypocrisy,
pretending it all, a meal of grand design.

But, my thirst yearns for the cool waters of intimacy,
for the honey sweetness borne of righteousness.

Who's to say why I cling in this self-deprivation,
or why I choose to swim in the muddy tide.

I do not know myself, nor do I recall what led me to this place of sorrow.
I squawk like a caged bird, hostage behind iron bars of sacrifice,
wings clipped, my song stolen by the thief of hearts.

In darkness, I endure to feed on pretense
clinging as a life- line to the rhythm of false promise
But, there is no happily ever after to conclude this tale,
no beacon of light that leads to a sun-drenched shore…
There is only the hollow of death…
an ending born and steeped in the gutters of iniquity,
a grave looming large and inevitable

I have grown cold in this world of make-believe
A corpse unable to escape the pain of injustice,
I am bound to the spit, circling from light to dark, from fire to ice.
My only companion in this travesty is the book of dark desires,
haunting memoirs of unrequited love and insurmountable loss,
where every story begins the same…

Once upon a stony heart…

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Copyright © 2014 Leria Hawkins, All Rights Reserved