Geode
Sometimes love looks solid from the outside.
Inside it is crystalline—beautiful, sharp, and fragile.
Slick of love
sliding on the ridges
of a jagged geode—
yet catching light,
cutting like deceitful stone
against the heart.
Love in a case,
glass housing.
But it is not necessary to touch
when you exist inside it.
What is wrong with me?
Fear rises at dawn
like shadows
cold among the dew,
daunting.
My reflection—
Sleeping Beauty with age.
A hundred years without love.
Youth fell upon the black marble counter.
Even at the peak of love
the face is unknown
looking back.
I want to strike her out.
Wear your eyes.
So fragile when you’re gone—
like mica chipping,
brittle beauty.
Dust of love.
Can you build a life
with sand?
Sarah Teal Axelrod