BentBlackTulips

She held the pristine mirror in her shaky hands nails clicking against the flawless surface (drum taps to precede the looming war) and gazing back from that distant world a wolf's face, cold and distorted. "So you see, my lady," he says, pressing his sword deeper into the pale, delicate skin, eyes dripping honey rain, "the very idea that you could be loved is as untrue as the reflection you behold." And three hours later, she crouches in the pooling red, and the detective kneels, the end of his cigar tainting the dark room scarlet; he whispers, "Monster," and she gnaws on the bone, angel wing white. "No, no monster," she chokes

she gathered her toys into her purse determined to show them all what she could do only to rock idly on her wooden steed and gather dust on her lapis eyes sometimes as we writhe our foot hits a table leg and shatters a porcelain doll.

The weathered bricks reluctantly fell into line and formed the guiding soldiers across the slum's streets. Feet shuffling, heads down against the threat of human contact some stride, some dance, some sulk, some died and all the empty promises echo in the rattle of the bearded man's crisscrossed metal ferry with the gimpy wheel. Plastic masochists kneel in the windows and children ask why and a crane woman in black sits upright black iron fence beside a sickly painter sparing his work the ordeal of reflecting reality. My eyes are enveloped by the brilliance of lights behind smoky glass.

astral fingers stretching through boundless skies quivering rhythms waiting for their feet to steady balance and abash retreat silently resolve to voice no goodbyes; though bleeding starry waters ever rise as long as this union is incomplete gracious rapture dances with aching heat so to draw tears of planetary eyes; and paint drops from the rainbow’s holy brush kindly mark the lovers’ unstable hands ensuring the eternal, sacred oath; the cosmos reclines with a sudden hush for this wisdom echoes on peaceful sands: without mortal distress exists no growth.

Not long ago I saw the suicide of a migrant author of lust and woe and he sputtered calmly through the cyanide and bade me wait a moment ere I go. He told me tales of romance gone awry fears of foggy cages and bruised bones and of hearing, across the cosmos, a sharp cry mimicking man and his milky skull of stones. So it would seem that one who mused so long would know much more than this green-limbed sprout but in spite of valiant efforts, his mongering song had misconstrued his purpose and stroked his doubt. For to this day one truth within my heart remains that love graces those who release the chains.