#padic

Collapse, supernova, apocalypse. Pretty words for a downward spiral—ring-around-the-rosie—that happens all at once. They all rest like wasted ammunition on my tongue.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Our meals are spent in silence. We face each other across my table, looking for closure or attention or something more. I no longer know what to call you: lover or mortal enemy? Even our conversations are a game of chance.

We have come to an impasse, and everything waits on the brink. Time starts to stand still.

but then there’s you: nightmare wrapped in stardust,

killer to the core. i tremble, i sigh, i hold you tight,

and i think there’s a poem to be found

in this, but you’ve been blinded to it.

still i whisper sweet rose-scented nothings.

still you whisper them back.

but the music has faded to black

and the flowers have withered away.

(so this is  d e s o l a t i o n .

so this is the underworld. so this

I am glacial, graceful, gruesome. A horror made flesh.

The diner is no longer graced by my steps. My days as a waitress, a mere mortal, are long forgotten. I’m dead to that world now, rising to an ancient name. I don’t just take your breath away anymore—I rip it from your throat. I learn the meaning of greed all too fast, and I put it to the test.

You don’t object, lovely soft thing that you are. How obligingly you fold under me. How neatly I finish you.

after your walks,

i don’t ask where you’ve been.

it’s enough that you’ve returned at all.

we settle in for the day. the sun goes down

like an angel lowered into the grave.

carefully, tenderly,

i peel back your layers

and try not to quiver

at a glimpse of your center:

molten, roiling, primeval—

from the belly of the earth itself.

you come back to me cracked,

every single day,

and past your porcelain skin

i turn towards the sunrise

and do not flinch. you grow

more at home in the shadow.

we seldom speak, and when we do

my voice no longer sounds like

it’ll light you up. yours isn’t

kindling anymore.

some days, i find myself shrinking,

s o f t e n i n g ,

and my heart rattles,

out of fear or love or both.

i want to sit you down and ask:

who spears a monster

for sport, darling? is it you?

is it me? do i hold your heart

in my hands

and should i let it fall? will anyone know

what treasons we have laid down