Pierce

Love
Is a mask
A blatant lie
I have believed

This word is a treasure
I thought I found
A treasure I have neither beheld
Nor seen
A treasure of my imagination
Contained in the walls of my thoughts
Hiding
Until reality, heartless
Has struck them down
And exposed
Not a treasure
But a fruit of my imagination

The sharpest tip of a weapon
The piece of a bullet
The edge of the dullest sword
The knuckle of a clutched fist
The last drop of poison

Love is the blade of the arrow
Belonging not to cupid
But to my beloved
Who has pierced me
Laid I my own knife
In his hands
Exposed to him the flesh of my back
Willingly did I turn away from him
Intrusting in his bloody fingers

The knife, my power made his
My back, my surrender
His pierce, his betrayal
The howl, my pain

Love is a budding tulip
Watered she is ripe
But when winter plucks spring from her season
She wilts
Love is a child’s smile
Innocent and rare
Vanishing

Love is the blank of this paper
Pure
Only to be corrupted
With words

Love is the fruit of humanity
And she is thus flawed
Like her creator

Flawed and beautiful is she
Like Mona Lisa
Serene and mischievous
Human and still
Simple and rare

The truth is
If Mona Lisa smiled
If this paper spat not words
If this a child forever remained young
If a sword never pierced
And a back never turned
Humanity would be a fruitless tree
A dry river
A fractured bone
Words unsaid
A poem
Incomplete.

by Ann Marina Guirguis