Original lines taken from Take This Longing by Leonard Cohen:

…your beauty lost to you, yourself,

just as it was lost to them –

take this longing from my tongue

all the useless things my hands have done

let me see your beauty broken down

like you would do

for one you love.

*************************************

broken beauty

 

What did they do to your

confidence that you don’t see your beauty

behind the pieces of you lost

to time, to happiness to

pieces of you

you wouldn’t see in yourself.

If I could just

love you enough as

to hold a mirror for you to see yourself in it,

I wonder if it was,

or would be time lost

for me to

find them

and take

them a painting of this

holy mess they’ve been longing

to claim from

what they have stolen from my

heart, my soul, my tongue.

Like you, once and for all,

I need the

voices to stop telling me I’m useless

with these things

tangled in my

heart in my hands.

I need to have

peace in what I have done.

Even when you have my blood to let,

you see me

let me see

you and all of your

broken beauty –

soul held down

with kisses like

everything you said you

loved or would

love if we could do

what we needed for

ourselves just one

time if you

let me give you love.

R. L. Elke

© Aug 5/17 prompt 8