Red Ribbon Gospel

You touched me like silk—
but your eyes kept the label: poison,
the kind that smiles
before it spills.

You wore danger like perfume,
thick, sugared, unavoidable—
cardamom, smoke, a sweetness
that finds the back of the throat.
I breathed you in
as if I hadn’t drowned there already.

You never raised your voice.
You didn’t need to.
Your silence had fangs;
I bled before you even asked.

You walked in with purpose,
laid a table, polished your charm like silver.
I wasn’t caught—I was lured.
I fed myself to you,
lipstick on my teeth,
calling the trap a banquet.

They warned me about red flags.
No one said how beautiful they’d look
cinched to the neck,
soft law tightening—polite, exact—
while I smiled for the mirror.

I should have run.
God, I should have run.
But you made falling pass for flight
until the ground cleared its throat
and did its old, efficient work.

You weren’t love.
You were ritual—
a velvet altar, candle-math,
and a sacrificial heart
that looked uncomfortably like mine.

You kissed like dusk—
slow, rich, terminal.
Each hello tasted of goodbyes.
Your touch was dare-shaped;
I answered like a fool with wings.

You wore the night as scent;
each glance a bruise,
each word dipped in sweet
and dripping with threat.
I called that storm home,
because the lighting was flattering.

I bled in bloom, I bloomed in pain—
rose with a hidden blade,
gold and grave,
a lover’s crown that pulled me under.
I wasn’t taken; I offered—
steady hands, shaking heart.

Now I sleep in your shadow,
hemmed with regret,
nightmares stitched
to the sound of your laugh.
And if safety knocks,
I deadbolt out of habit.

Because worship is stubborn.
Ruin wears you well.
So I keep the keepsake anyway—
that obedient strip of red,
smooth, patient—
and lift my throat to meet its bow,

while somewhere past the window
the world loosens its fist,
and morning tests the knot—
thin light on silk,
a quiet vow breathing,
not quite tight, not yet undone.