embrace the fighter inside. beside.

saving truth for when we need it,
dancing away our right to be needed,
clutching to this dance of trance and pants-off,
hands-off sex with self that pulses
to the beat of no one and finishes never.

having found the one we love,
we'd still rather have the one we shoved
away yesterday as we cursed the night away
hating the hovering feelings of sadness even as we embraced them
clutching to the hoodie in between me and him even as he
fought his hard out to destroy the demons circling her head
'they're dead,' she said, you can't bring them back to life
this strife is over, it's behind me, i don't need it anymore
well, i see that it's behind you, my dear, but what you don't understand
is that it's clinging to your back-- sinking
its poison claws into your soft, beautiful back
as you spin round and round, pushing away any who approach.

it's not you who growls, its them-- they're not your friend.
don't kill yourself with feelings of trapped
and cancellations of feelings unsettled. i'm here to take care of it, not
to be coddled and protected from it.
i'm a man, and i grow through pain. i faced things last night that
i'd never seen before in my life, and as i stood alone,
darkness piercing the life from my lifeless body
my mind lived on, singing its song to you from beyond the backseat of some car somewhere,
beyond the cares of this strongbox of life, beyond the strife of fights and of nice,
beyond the beauty of beautiful,
she holds me in her mind and i realize how wrong i am.
but it's only when she's touching me that i can use her powers.
this flower is worthless if it's hiding away,
drying out without the movement of the mover who is hers,
the strength at her access with the acts of excess and violence of her violater,
her version of the destructor of all and the lover of none.

wait, scratch that.

there's one.