How many nights can I dance in the afterburn?
Slippers on scorched ground
Smudges of charcoal and
Melted plastic smiles
It was supposed to have been decimated
But they forgot about me, the job was incomplete
So much for pipe dreams and all my arrogant faith
I'm left waltzing on spindles
Turning round and round like a music box dancer
Broken springs
Dangling loose
Over shattered ledges
Bells off-key, a carnival calliope
And the haunting laughter of the children
Whose blood now stains the streets
And runs into the gutters a little clearer with each winter rain
(It can rain all the time, and does)
Scissor-points and dagger-pains
And venom from forked tongues
Bitter to the taste and blinding
The screams of children never born
Stains my sheets and renders the dawn in shades of black and grey
She loved me she did
For all the illusions and beautiful lies
Monstrosities painted pretty around the edges
Promises of meanings, never meant to last beyond the dawn
It was supposed to be my last chance
But what do you do when last chances crumble?
And dissolve like incense smoke in the rain?
When the ground quaking so long beneath you
Shifts and falls away to grey, to void?
Cling to the inertia,
Or set the broken wing and leave it
Or dive into the darkness?
Ignore the voices and dive into the darkness?
Raven's wings
The gloss of new blood
Seeping from the devil's own smile
Chalk and ash and porcelain perfection
Framed in lilies
Dusted with bone powder
Damned by the righteous killers
And damned by the faith
That kept him alive for so long
Do not see me
See through me
And if you must remove my heart with savage hands
Sever the chords and steep your claws in ichor
Promise you will savor every sweet drop
It will never come back and never come back and never come back
And the emptiness echoes
Like walking down a city street
Brushing shoulders with automatons
Their mouths sewn shut with flat, black stitches
It will never come back to that
You thought yourself so clever
To pin it to a board, to put it on display
Part of a collection
When it should have been the only one
Cut my wrists and watch me bleed
Sew my mouth shut to keep the screams from waking you my darling
I've already been dead for so long
The wax in my veins, the inertia, is all too real
Remember to breathe, remember to breathe
If you don't come up for air
The silken strands will only hold for so long
Before the begin to ravel
Spring, 1998