Emerald Circle

I wore the old desire like a second skinA borrowed fire that I kept living inEvery mirror gave me someone to becomeEvery hunger beat its little kingdom drumPerfume and memory, venom and laceGhost after ghost with your shadowed faceI called it love when it only curledRound the locked gate of a smaller worldI fed on fragments, on heat, on signsOn bruised-up kisses and broken designsI drank from the wells that never stayed clearI knelt to the shape of my favorite fearAnd all that glittered began to rotAll that possessed me possessed me notTill something deeper than want or painBegan to rise through my blood like rainOpen the sky inside of meBreak what I was to set me freeBeyond the woundBeyond the willBeyond the names I answer stillTake this heart past the edges of formHold me whole in the center of the stormI climbed through memory, bone by boneThrough every inheritance called my ownThe father-voice, the inward chainThe ancient pattern beneath the nameI turned to face what I could not keepThe root that twisted below the deepAnd there you were—not dream, not sign—But the living vast with its coils in mineNot the sweeter lieNot the lesser flameNot the wound I learnedTo worship by nameYou were the fieldYou were the seaYou were the silenceUnfastening meOpen the sky inside of meBreak what I was to set me freeBeyond the woundBeyond the willBeyond the names I answer stillTake this heart past the edges of formHold me whole in the center of the stormCrown of the dark that births the dawnTake all I am and carry it onNo more the shardNo more the roleNo more the hunger that called me wholeI am the cry and the answering flameI am the wound and the nameless nameCome through me nowAnd after the breaking, a deeper desireNot less of the bodyBut more of the fire

—“Emerald Circle,” Track 7 on Scarlet Aeon, Heart Girt with a Serpent, 1995/2026.