Lover's Betrayal 
(a poem about head pain) 

I might have called you soul mate
   With such unrelenting presence
             But your touch is not a comfort
      Yet harsh in very essence

You're the shadow nipping at my heels
   -a darkness ever encroaching 
               You drape your arm about my neck
          -Lover close approaching

As if to finger strands of hair
    You coax my weighty skull
        To rest within your hold - and I
                     Ignore the pressure, dull

            From ear to ear-A backwards smile
        Your hand thus placed
    Coyly takes
  My oxygen, my fluids -vital
in lulling, sickening pace

At length you sing a ringing song
      Within my ears so bright
I shrink in fetal pose
     And hide my eyes from glaring light

So dim to all of those
    who do not know your stabbing glance
            Who do not know your dank caress
                      that spirals into trance

With dagger sharp betrayal
     You slide your greasy nail
         Into the very brainstem till my
                             Wrestling is derailed-

                  You think to own me there within
                            Tomb-like catatonic
              But rise again I do you fool, is it-
                       Not a bit ironic?

          I hold the keys of life see here-
                Bought by my truest love*
                  And this you cannot take from me
                       *A birthright from above*

By Zoe Ashcraft