Sackcloths drape like snakes weaving around the neck,
Venom pricking at her eyes,
And these stone words tumble past the rim of her lips:
You held my heart and carried it into the ground.

What I mean to say is:
My palms sweat and my legs twitch and
I mentally count the bricks in the wall;
I wish for tears to quell the burning embers
Sparking into searing at the thought
Of my heart-strangling one.
I mean to scream with crimson nails
Scraping crimson lashes in your corpse
Wavering I step into suit of flesh and bone
And I am silent.

She fascinates.
Every word a probing finger tapping
Morse code in the amygdala,
Drawing out nebulous shadows,
Gnawing chasms,
Whispers on the edge of mnemonic dreams
Defining our ragged hearts.
She is us and we are she and we
Love and die.

I wear her tongue like a glove,
Compose my heart to
Become the vessel of her prose.
My spirit is the lamb on the altar
Of catharsis en masse.

Her body arches in the cyclical dance of the blackbird.

The girl on the stage
The girl in the mirror
Plummet to equilibrium;
Hanging in the balance
The bard tiptoes on euphony
And lies.