To Cherry Torn

—for the Queen in crimson lace—

In the hush where midnight coils, your name is writ in blackened oils. Cherry Torn—so sweet, so cruel, you light the wick and bend the rule.

Your birthday bleeds in candlewax, a binding oath on leather tracks. The room obeys your every breath, a velvet gasp, a little death.

Your thighs, the gates to sacred sin, where rituals of ache begin. I kneel between the yes and no, and learn how deep devotion goes.

A ribbon tight around my throat, your laugh, a whip—your eyes, a mote of molten dark that knows its aim: to carve the soul and brand the name.

The cuffs click shut like whispered prayer. You feast on want laid trembling bare. No gift could match the way you burn— the ache you give, the ache I yearn.

So take this night, this willing slave, this verse I wrote from shadow's cave— A poem tied with silken scorn. Happy birthday, Mistress Torn.