It’s not that your mouth isn’t enough, it’s
what’s under those roses of lips never
opened troubling our purpose; is it worth
swallowing? Secrets purchased with kisses
burn furnaces we let leave us hurting—
when the flame’s been extinguished, love’s burdened.
Without your head, would I still be burdened?
Or would I lift it up if your spirit’s
bones were broken? Is that it then? Hurting
too much, coming too close, that you never
can be certain if it’s only kisses
or misery you’re wanting, that you’re worth?
Let my tongue taste and tell you what you’re worth,
cleaning off curses others left, burdened
your temple’s column with, unsafe kisses
stamped all over its holy thickness—it’s
blasphemous those lip-worshipers never
knelt before heaven’s face without hurting.
Pauses prayerfully spaced, each like hurting
sheep awaiting their mouthful, taste of worth
left to waste; past your prime, silence never
followed desire like ours, nor more burdened—
slowly poured, holy water all o’er its
hardened peak soared, drowned, and soured our kisses.
Hundred-headed man, once headless, kisses
greet circumstance with fists as if hurting
ours turns tragedy to romance with its
illusion of permanence; a life’s worth
of missed chances leaves lovers so burdened,
thoughtlessness overturns what men never
would have guessed preserves them. It’s the never
working more than your face—lazy kisses
laid on parts farthest from hearts—that burdened
us with an eternity of hurting,
leaving us both wanting more than we’re worth;
sucking down our divinity to its
damnation. Yet obsolescence, with its
imminent death sentence, is surely worth
ev’ry beheading if it ends hurting.