Manners

God bless the girl with blueberry eyes and a tangy smile Fill her veins with juice and her heart with sugar May she stay floral and refrain from acidity God please keep her from the teeth of tearers the pinch of pickers the crust of bakers the pestle of jammers the dripping tongue of critics God keep that gaze as bright as the leaves that bred it Keep it fresh keep it earthy and ripe but keep it tart too May it never lose its punch and may it never have to use its punch either

What is wrong with you? See a fallen face that is gray. What is off with you? See muscles not sharp that barely do pray. There's something not right with your head. Loving a nothing like me is the same as loving a stone. There's something not just right with that head. Loving a nothing that is cold and hard and drone. Don't you see all the ways I'm not enough? I must leave, your mind is just not right. Don't you see all the ways I fall short? I must be on, your mind is just not quite. Take a fool, take a drunkard, take a tool, take a hunkered, but please do not take me. Take a slunk, take a junk, take a forgetter, take a hitter, but please do not say we. You want me to try, though I'd rather just die but your arms keep sending me hither. You want me to spry, though I'd rather just cry but these are the ways of a giver.

There's something mysterious about you. You're a code I must decipher, an enigma I must unlock. You are an absolute riddle that I must discern. How you lean in those shadows with hat low, your gaze teasing beneath its wide brim. How you smile but don't. How your hands twirl beads like a scholar his pen. Fate sleeps in your dimples and you wouldn't wake him for the world. You're a puzzle but your pieces don't fit together, mainly because you are not pieces but a whole. You can never be broken. Gold can never be shattered. Oh, how you think your lashes conceal intuition. I know your cunning is the key to your vaulted mind. I know you're quicker than I am, but I think that's exactly what you want me to think. Therein you lies a thousand-digit combination that is your instinct and suspicion. Therein me lies a shared secret that I see you know. That you are a fortress and I am but a man with no army and no weapons of siege.

Do you know what the most resilient creature is? A spider. It can run. It can jump. It can hide. It can fly. At its fingertips is a force stronger than steel. It is feared by all, including the brawn. It is more deadly than all, despite its size. Yet it is an outcast. It is not worshipped. It is hunted. It is seen as a pest, though it is a destroyer of pests. And with all the hate against, it is not shaken. Suitors and mantises kneel to its fangs. Any bold enough to breach its silver-spun castle are clung to its halls for eternity. A woman in the world is the same. And just like the widow, she must go on weaving. Not passive, not waiting, laboring in silence — for her prey to come right where she wants them. In her locked steel chamber, where she can unleash all the fury of the misunderstood.

You don't trust yourself. Why don't you trust yourself? Is it cause he told you not to? Is it cause you want him to tell you not to? You know you shouldn't get in that car. You can change your mind and change it again. Don't be so hard on yourself. That engine'll cool down even if he doesn't. Let him gun it without you behind its power. Let this hit you in the gut, so that engine doesn't.