Hypnotized, brainwashed, tortured

yet I never leave.

Taking my innocent love and staining it
with poison--doomed to die
slowly, painfully, agony unending
but your smile still chains my wrists
no matter what you take I need
what you give.

I'll take the punches and kicks, blood in my mouth,
bruises blue--old and still new--
cuts and hate and guilt and pain,
still sweet for all time.

Stabbing words hospitalize me
but the sweet deep abyss in forest eyes
sustains me, nourishes my starving soul
with mercy--imagined love like sleep to the freezing--
frost-bit toes and shivering down to the bones,
still smiling though anguished for misery sends you higher
and though my death looms foretold
in the blood flowing like my soul's tears,
your joy, satisfied, hypnotizes me and
I will never leave.