Judas Kiss

A poet’s voice is currency
so too is our truth,
transparent emotions
benevolent fruit.

Laced with compassion
both scream and croon
empaths at heart,
to a fault —but to whom?

To those who perhaps, 
care not for our souls?
Or those who extract
and attack and cajole?

My heart is my compass
alas, to my distress
for sometimes too soon,
impuissance they undress.

Enfilade fire
convulsing my spine,
blindsided, blighted,
twisted, convicted.

“Do explain the charges,
what is my crime?”

At that moment it hits me,
an act so supine,
I confided in someone
out of turn, out of time.

Glaciers thrashing,
blemished rapport.
a child’s prized blanket
lured away from my core.

Disquiet unravels
to the dangle of shame.
Calumny attacking
to the melody of pain.

Rapt in the aftermath
of a violent storm,
the merciless cesspool of
perverted concern.

Like my brethren before,
I will rise once again
with firm tools of justice,
cruelty be damned.

Photo by Alina