19

Rumpled bedsheets, a candle sheds a tear
rose from lover lies on the floor, a saccharin gesture rots
a yellowing novel sits, its words taking seed in her mind.
She whimpers, a solemn sigh escapes
her face a canvas with a flourish of Victorian scandal
jet ribbons snake over every ivory curve,
the night resting heavy on her shoulders.

A silhouette pours through a crack of curtain,
and the dust is lifted
a cloaked figure is poised, sinister with a touch of elegance.
Misplaced, he belongs elsewhere- a graveyard or morgue
he arches his spine and closes in, pushes back the cloth. Revealed!

Pale and emaciated, what dark eyes convey...lust, thirst, hunger
pearly blades, blood stained- a chance mutation?
draws back his coarse, blue lips.
Starved of love after a lifetime of death,
his heart lies in a gutter and drips.

Her eyelids snap and bones tighten
but still sparks of excitement fly,
he beckons her with dexterous fingers which dance along the cotton
and lace.

She pushes air from her chest and turns her head,
too inviting as her neck is pressed.
"Close my eyes to the true ugliness of mine life!" she cries
he penetrates the exterior and dark red leeches from dark red holes
she sighs at the pleasure as she's maimed,
age old and Medieval, thought to cure a victim's pain.
She drinks bad blood, black and viscous...

The infection seeps in, an ancient sickness spreads
tearing nerves like silk thread, rewiring, changing the imprint
and starting anew.
Her heart sinks, defeated.

Burning cravings spawn from a diseased soul
a desire to drink, she licks her lips lustily.
"The living are like clockwork, too mechanical, too human" she thinks
"Now it's the dead's time to reign".


© 2009 Florence Challender