New Lives

For the men who can finally rid themselves of the dragons.
Kaye


At dawn she finds me
Floating in a dark ocean
The heat curling from my toes
The cool rivulets running across my chest
She asks
Why am I in the bath at dawn

She forgets
About a time in the night
When she told me I was filth
When she spat words on me
And the ice whispers singed my skin

The hate floats on the surface
An oil slick of grime and patronising spit
She kneels and drags her fingers through the oil
I watch
The hand slip across my leg
And its wake of contradiction

She asks
Why I take her hand from the water
And hold it to the cool
To wash her free
From the excess of my body
Filled with lust. And my disgust
She knows
I am protecting her from herself.