Cardinal

Locked beneath my lungs, a cardinal in her crimson cage, humming. Who was I to know a whistling song from wheezing, when winter’s been so unforgiving? Can you ever really tell when a cardinal’s bleeding? Sheathed by the sternum’s firm touch, fast asleep to the sound of blood raiding every inlet.

See, this involuntary violence the spout of a waterfall, from which I selflessly let her drink. Giving her the utmost shelter, an indecipherable fragment amidst a scarlet sea, unseen. 

Your audacity to strain this leash and chain, limping in alone, afraid.  As if I'd lick your wounds today.  Take this salt, your salve. Salt the ocean now surging in your eyes.  Eyes of alchemy, out to haunt you. You speak as if the sound held 3 daggers, 2 knives, 6 blades. 

You, a hollow home held up by every voice save your own  With a loyalty owed to law  Eyes of alchemy, swelling before the safety of your own skin  full with the fear of God.