The Beauty of the MartyrShe closes her eyes against me and chokes on the dark beauty that has risen in her throat.Not hearing the thundering floor beneath her, she falls into an equally dark dream, a reality to all those willing to believeThis falling martyr marks the end of a sullen rebellion.Auto-da-f", she burns in her own mental anguish, blazing in her mind the path not taken.For everything unknown, she commits a heresy larger than she ever thought.Reality, in schism, brought her closer to the gods than ever before.Though she sees it as nothing, what she has established embraces the delusion-infested people of my dreamworld, the only place where she really lives.Now completely in my mind, away from the cruel evils of her former world, she flies into the rites of a goddess.Her majesty restored, she reigns, her soul in a rare state of calm.by Kyra Sweeney, New Ipswich, NH