My heart sits on its throne,
a tyrant cloaked in velvet and venom,
beating not with rhythm
but with rebellion.
It snarls at offerings, spitting at garlands of roses,
laughing at confessions delivered
with trembling hands.
“I am no beggar,” it declares,
its voice a sharp crescendo of thunder,
“I demand not crumbs but constellations.”
It rips apart the ribbons of easy affection,
scowling at every fleeting kiss as if
it were an insult to its grandeur.
It struts like a monarch at war with the universe,
each beat a decree: I am owed more.
More fire in the glance,
more storms in the promises,
more ink on the letters of devotion
that come soaked in shallow rain.
At night,
it paces—an insomniac general
plotting battles against ordinary love.
It scoffs at harmony,
glaring through the bars of my ribs,
muttering, “Is this all? Is this the nectar
humans write sonnets for?”
My heart doesn’t merely desire—it devours,
demanding the impossible:
lightning bottled in jars,
stars to be plucked from their galaxies,
wars to be waged for its amusement.
It asks for loyalty that does not blink,
for passion to be carved into the fabric of the earth.
I have tried to tame it,
tried to leash it with reason.
But it bites back,
its fangs dripping with insolence.
“I was not made to bow,” it snarls.
“I was not made to settle.”
And when I plead, when I beg it to be kinder,
to take the soft lullabies of love as enough,
it roars with laughter that shakes my bones.
“Kindness is for the meek,” it spits.
“Give me fires that consume forests.
Give me storms that make gods tremble.”
And so I live, prisoner to its insatiable hunger,
dragging its throne behind me
through the desert of human affection.
No oasis satisfies its thirst.
No horizon quells its yearning.
As it carves its demands into the chambers of my soul,
it whispers, almost tenderly,
"You do not hate me for my greed.
You hate me because you are too small for my dreams"
©susanne
S