Softness

Love in requitedness 
unfolds into butterflies and petals
and in its going and gone
collapses into voids so blessed 
that screams are exquisitely private
all kiss-me-nots and exquisite brambles
conscious venture into known traps
nights of lunacy
and deaths that never arrive,
softness that brims in eyes
and the edge of daybreaks;
soft hurts are hard-takes
and will not roll fingers into fist
stops at lip-edge 
is nudged from the high plateaus of innocence
but will not be embraced by earth-slip;
it's hard, so hard that it floats
among brigands and ghosts
the pickpockets of hope,
so soft is soft push-away
it yields a fragrance exquisite and lethal
tortures, but never kills.