The Tree of Knowledge/Ouroboros

I always arrive with my heart on my sleeve,

in anticipation of an inevitable trampling,

it’s almost like a masochistic need –

with my yearning to love,

the collar,

and my hope of being loved,

the lead.

Once upon a time I found myself within the garden of Eden,

lying within the warm arms of a man

who gifted me freedom.

I thrived joyfully as his rib,

I felt honoured to embrace and encase his heart,

and as his bone I truly lived.

Soon though,

I was tempted by forbidden fruit,

a shiny, serpentine apple dangling from a tree,

my eyes were in pursuit,

the beginning of an insidious uproot.

And my penance, the fee?

A life ever after

to be half lived,

tainted by misery.

Ever since my fall from grace,

Paradise lost without trace,

I've eaten only rotten apples

and become accustomed to that bitter taste.

Original sin punished:

cursed as an Ouroboros doomed

to forever eat my own tale

of arriving heart on sleeve,

trying to fulfil an unmet need,

collared by yearning, with hope that misleads.

I repeatedly discover

the undeniable truth,

that knowledge is proof

we were set up to fail:

A never ending cycle of swallowing our own poisonous tail.