To Immortalize my Innocence, they named me

After their beloved, perfect Virgin.

When I really wanted to be as naive as Eve.

But the only woman I ever felt like was Lilith.

Do you know what it feels like to grow up

In Paradise? Where nothing dies

Before your childish eyes.

I flourished there until I ate the seeds of

The forbidden fruit and planted the Flower of Evil

Inside my own soul. Hands coaxed me out

Of the Garden of Eden because you never

Know what you've got until it's gone.

They took away the garden in exchange for

One seed I was told to never plant.

I almost listened until I turned too old

And realized I had already let it get under my skin.

It flourished in the bruises and the blood rage underneath.

I ate from it often while imagining it was from where you were.

The memories of you only a feeling.

A knowing of what unconditional love could feel like.

Sometimes...if I look out at the ocean I feel sleepy.

When I hear Korean, I can't help but fall in love.

The amnesia of what it feels like to be first

In someone's heart leaves me wishing

To go back once more to verify it's existence.

But I'm terrified. I know what lives in you.

I hear it on the phone. You love a little girl

Who's more beautiful and loving than I've been for years.

If I let you know me, I die for good.

You are the last place my flower hasn't coiled.

I am permanently perfect in your heart and in your mind.

I never want to change for you.

There's a spider's thread leading to you, but I'm

never ready to climb it when I know how this ends.

And somehow I know I'm wrong about it all.

You've never abandoned me when stories

Leak into your ears. You never force

my confession because your love isn't a religion.

It's a feeling. It's seeing a flower turn deep in

Color and remembering how much your

Love could make me blush and brighten.

It's the sun setting and rising around me

The same way you held me between you.

It's in the myths because nothing is more

Unbelievable than knowing no matter what I do

No matter what I say or how I act, two people

Will love me immortal. They refuse anything but

My innocence in all things.

I could be the most poisonous flower in existence

And they would plant me at the center of their souls.