Poems by Rose

Terms of Surrender
 
You march from ruin straight to newer ground,
before the smoke has settled from the last;
you plant your flag where softer soil is found,
then call it strength to travel twice as fast.
 
You pitch your tent. You praise the peaceful place.
You swear this soil is safer than before.
But every border bears the boy you chase—
still searching for the country lost to war.
 
You seek a nation sworn to never close,
a shore that shelters every scar you bring;
a field that flowers though you scorch the rows,
a flag still flying while the bullets sing.
 
So every woman turns to proving ground:
Will she withstand the warning and the wound?
Will she stay standing when the shots resound?
Will she call silence peace when peace is ruined?
 
You test the walls.
You test the gate.
You test the tenderness you claim to crave.
You push until the hinges strain with hate,
then curse the door for choosing not to cave.
 
And when she leaves, you name it mutiny.
You call her border proof she never cared.
You christen caution disloyalty,
as though enduring fire were love declared.
 
But I was never territory won.
No captured country. No compliant state.
I stood beside you freely, soldier—one
who offered peace, not passage through my gate.
 
I gave you grace.
I gave you ground.
I gave you every gentle thing I knew.
But grace was never license to surround,
and love was never leave to march straight through.
 
No friendly fire.
No fury dressed as fear.
No sharpened word made harmless by remorse.
No breach by breach, then asking why I veer
when every warning turns me from your course.
 
Perhaps you chase the first flag never flown,
the first safe shore that should have called you son;
perhaps each woman briefly feels like home
until the oldest battle has begun.
 
But I cannot become that missing land,
nor mother every mercy you were due.
I cannot bleed obedient where I stand
to prove that I can love the child in you.
 
Because I did love you.
 
Just not as law.
 
Not like a homeland bound to bear your harm.
Not like the first embrace you should have known
that held through every hunger, hurt, alarm.
 
I loved you with a treaty.
 
One demand:
 
Respect the border.
Honor what was mine.
 
You crossed it anyway.
 
So understand—
 
I did not lose the war.
 
I left the line.



 
Typecast
 
You keep casting the same woman
beneath a different name,
changing just enough of the face
to rehearse the same old blame.
 
I never came asking for a part.
I came offering half the show—
found the stage, dressed the scenes,
brought an audience of my own.
 
I kept the lights from going dark,
carried more than my share,
even brought someone backstage
when the old script followed you there.
 
I thought we were writing together
until you handed me her cues,
making your co-producer
an understudy you could bruise.
 
And still, when I walked toward the wings,
you begged me not to go—
as if staying meant accepting
a role I never chose.
 
So I left you with the script
you refused to revise,
and you went back to casting
the face your anger recognizes.
 
Maybe one day you’ll understand
what was different about me:
 
I came to help you change the ending.
 
You were still directing
the same old scene.





 
Piece by Piece
 
I remember unwrapping the box— 
Bright paper promising play, 
Something meant for fun and family, 
For laughter at the end of the day. 
 
But before we built a single thing, 
Before one block stood tall, 
The cardboard caught my fingertip 
And drew the first red warning of all. 
          
I should have called it an omen— 
That thin, bright thread of blood:
Before the game had even started, 
It had already collected its price. 
 
Still, I opened it. 
Still, I played. 
Still, I helped you stack each piece, 
Never knowing something made for laughter 
Would teach me how love comes apart. 
 
Like a game of Jenga, 
You pulled the first block 
That shook the foundation 
Of everything we built. 
 
No matter what you do, 
Though I may trust you, 
It was never again intact 
After that first attack. 
 
When what was said, you repeated— 
Words you claimed came from your ex who cheated— 
Whether hers or something you designed,
I never knew whose poison I would find. 
 
Either way, you brought it to me 
And watched the first block slide— 
Not caring where the words began, 
Only where they landed inside. 
 
Then came another piece. 
And another. 
And another. 
 
You learned how much a tower could lose 
Before anyone called it abuse. 
 
You mocked what I provided— 
another block gone. 
Turned generosity to ridicule, 
then reached for one more. 
 
You made me the punchline, 
then called the laughter small, 
As though humiliation 
Could never weaken walls. 
 
You wanted my heart 
To beat only to your will— 
Another block extracted. 
Another hollow left to fill. 
 
Piece by piece, 
Word by word, 
You dismantled what we were. 
Not with one tremendous strike, 
But little pulls disguised as fights. 
 
That is the cruelty of this game— 
The tower does not scream. 
It stands through every missing piece 
And almost looks complete. 
 
So you kept pulling. 
 
One insult from the middle. 
One accusation from below. 
One cruel comparison 
Placed where you knew it would show. 
 
You tested every weakness 
Like a soldier testing ground, 
Finding where the structure shook, 
Then circling back around. 
 
You knew which blocks were bearing weight. 
You knew which words would bruise. 
Still, your hand kept reaching in 
For something else to lose. 
 
Until loving you became 
The labor of remaining— 
My two hands around a tower 
You were steadily unmaking. 
 
I braced one side. 
You pulled the other. 
I called it patience. 
You pulled another. 
 
And eventually 
There was no balance left, 
No trembling tower 
Tenderness could keep upright. 
 
It fell. 
 
Not because I failed to hold it. 
Not because one final fight 
Was somehow heavier than every wound 
That came before that night. 
 
It fell because you emptied it 
From the inside, piece by piece— 
Taking trust, then tenderness, 
Then safety, shelter, peace. 
 
And when the whole thing hit the floor, 
You stared at the scattered stack 
As though collapse were sudden, 
As though one block could put it back. 
 
But ruins keep their records. 
Every wooden piece could tell 
Exactly where your fingers were 
Before the tower fell. 
 
So do not ask me which last block 
Finally brought us to the ground. 
There was no single final word— 
There were hundreds scattered round. 
 
You did not lose me in a moment. 
You removed me piece by piece, 
Until the love you swore you wanted 
Had no structure underneath. 
 
And still, I might have gathered 
What little could be saved, 
Still might have stacked the splinters 
And called the wreckage whole. 
 
But then one piece flew farther 
Than the others ever had— 
Past the ruins at my feet,
Past everything we had. 
 
It struck the smaller towers 
Standing quietly nearby, 
And I watched them shake beneath it, 
Too small to understand why. 
 
That was the piece. 
 
The one I could not excuse. 
The one I would not sand smooth, 
Restack, rename, or reuse. 
 
Because I had learned to bear 
What landed hard on me, 
But I would not watch your hands 
Teach smaller towers how to bleed. 
 
So I knelt among the wreckage— 
Not to rebuild what you destroyed, 
Not to force the pieces back, 
Not to fill another void. 
 
I picked up every block 
Your hands had pulled from place— 
Every insult, every injury, 
Every absence dressed as grace.
 
One by one, 
I fed them to the fire. 
The pieces that once held us 
Became kindling for the pyre. 
 
Then I poured a dark elixir 
And watched the flames climb higher— 
Whiskey washing over wood, 
Gunpowder courting fire. 
 
I would leave no charred reminder, 
No block half-blackened, half-intact. 
I wanted ash and only ash, 
No splintered thing to carry back. 
 
I watched the edges blacken. 
I watched your fingerprints burn. 
Watched every word you gave me 
Become ash in its turn. 
 
Piece by piece. 
Flame by flame. 
I gave the wreckage back its name. 
 
Not love. 
Not home. 
Not something I should save. 
Just timber from a fallen thing 
I was no longer bound to raise. 
 
You spent so long dismantling us 
You thought the ending would be mine— 
Me kneeling there among the blocks, 
Still begging them to align. 
 
But I was not rebuilding. 
 
I was gathering. 
 
And when I lifted the final piece, 
I remembered that first thin cut— 
The warning I had wrapped in hope 
And chosen not to trust. 
 
This time, 
I listened. 
 
I fed the final block to fire, 
Watched flame consume what you had wrecked— 
And for the first time in our game,
I was the one
who did not put it back.




 
The Warning
 
I know this sound. I know this shake—
the iron humming through the ground,
the distant whistle, low with ache,
the little tremor gathering round
before the engine rounds the bend.
 
My wrists are tied to one cold rail,
my ankles stretched across its twin.
I pull. I twist. I strain and fail.
Each side pulls tighter; knots dig in—
I’m torn before the train comes in.
 
Beyond the bend, beneath the sun,
a silver shimmer splits the heat.
I know that shape. I know that sound.
The rails begin beneath my feet
to beat their warning through the ground.
 
Perhaps it’s easier to die
when death arrives before you know.
No growing shape against the sky,
no measured terror, slow by slow—
but I can see how close it grows.
 
The first ones stop. I beg through cloth.
They shade their eyes against the glare.
They look, then laugh the danger off:
“You’re seeing things. There’s nothing there.”
Then leave me bound and gasping there.
 
The train grows larger in plain sight.
The whistle cuts the noonday air.
A second crowd comes running near,
their phones rise quickly everywhere—
but not one hand reaches me there.
 
They film the ropes. They film my fight.
They catch each tremor, gasp, and plea.
Close enough to capture me,
close enough to clearly see—
not close enough to set me free.
 
Then others come. They do not stare.
They do not stop to ask me why.
Half kneel beside me then and there;
half run toward the switch nearby.
No speech. No pose. No alibi.
 
The phones stay raised. They film it all—
the hands that loosen, lift, and free,
my wrists gone raw, my ankles torn,
the gag pulled hard away from me.
They watch, but never bend a knee.
 
They reach the switch. They lean and pull.
The rails grind hard; the track divides.
The engine screams into the turn
and takes the line that bends aside—
away from where I would have died.
 
Beyond the crossing, rails descend,
away from sun and crossing bell,
until the track becomes a road
that drops where neither light can dwell
and carries that train straight to Hell.
 
I lie there shaking in the sun,
my wrists still raw, my ankles sore.
The train is gone. The ground grows still.
Still, we keep listening for the roar—
one train has passed. We watch for more.




 

Afterimage

I traced your shadow on a white wall

An afterimage burned where you withdrew

An apparition flickers from our final fall

The shape of what I feared and now I knew

No pulse remains for me to follow through

​

I offered years in covenant and breath

You answered trained in ruin, shaped by fight

A child conscripted early into Death

Then sent to war to make the damage right

You brought that War to every form of light

​

You stood with Me beneath a watching God

No darkness hides behind what you became

Go on-- rewrite your Truth, deny the Fraud

Another heart will learn your practiced game

But Justice does not loosen at your name.