A Woman with Horns

I am a horned woman,
who stands with bleeding palms,
berryful and beauty stricken by the wind and weather that is unconditionally ours.
I stand at the edge of your desires
and tend to your ember with the rations,
the onionskins and paper kindling to slowly bring you alight.
layers that peel,
I unsheath sheet by sheet,
night by night

Not so you can
immolate me
in the blazes of industry
but that I may be driven by my own heart
between the heights of twin bonfires
once I’ve beaten the bounds and know,
and know by my own hands;
The breadth and breath of virgin lands
Between us.
What is untouched,
can you
let it
embrace us?

But you’d swear
I am bleeding to feed you blood pudding
and unsheathing to prove to you something
and needing to knead down the dough of my worry
to give rise to your shallow company.

Do you think I ought not to be any
more than milk and honey,
and that I am intentionally less than what you want me to be?
Am I a disappointment by my own volition
and stubborn bullery?
Or, by your expectations of
domestication?
Do you find yourself
disappointed
when I don’t slaughter
myself to fill your plate up?
That you have to do all the hard work of exploitation?
Then, little brother,
why don’t you don the high heels and make-up?

Wake up.
Wake up little brother.
The Old Gods are Rising
and your Sad Ways are tiring.
Wake up.

Wake up to remembering the rain on your face
and how the sky filled with grace came
to soothe the land that’s been raped.
Wake up and remember that She
is not some petulent shrew
but the holiest temple of healing
that never once
denied you.

Wake up little brother
And be driven to your own edges
Find the threshold
Grasp the nettle
Realise
You’re not dead yet.
You’re not dead yet.
You’re
not
dead
yet.

If you look
you can tell
that the road back home beckons.
And the threshold is the reckoning
of learning to recognise
yourself
in all that you’ve been given.

So wake up
little brother
And come back
Back through the hollow at the back of your head.
Wade through the shallows
of the spiritually dead.

Wake up and remember
berryful palms and tender breath
the love of a woman with horns
and the plentiful breast
of the water that falls
and the wild skies caress.

Remember
Who You Are
little brother.
Wake up now.
With a fire in your head.
Wake up
become a man, little brother,
and honour what you said.