The moon is a newly spun toy,
The gilded play thing of lovers
Who wrap protestations around limbs
And move in ancient tongues
Under the sheets of dreams.
The after-taste of your body on mine
Is the powerful shock wave
Where half-worlds collide
And wreck the night with unholy music.
Your fingers implore me and beg for damage
Each inch of you a bruise of my lips
And a livid scar that puckers
The wicked edge of my want....

The warm edge of just beginning beckons
Like a newly threaded loom, taut with possibility,
The threads a tangled coat of many colors.
There is such an unforgivable seduction in the unknown...
All you can taste is riddles;
And the shock of unraveling secrets
Reverberates on your tongue like the low rumble of summer.
Mystery is a pillow you place your head upon
And beg for happily ever after.
In the corner of your eye she sits, the rich India ink of her words teasing your anticipation.
If she offered herself up, skin peeled back
To reveal the raw beauty of flaws
Would you even guess at the bright wealth she weaves?
She holds your heart with the stitches of silver needles
And silken tendrils that ensnare your efforts to understand.

You wear my shame in a bleak curtain of tears
A single strand of dark silk ripped from the night
The pattern torn, ends fraying in the dying light
That dares to slip under my doorway.
A patina of doubt wears at my edges...clings like a shroud.
The gauze of too many years shredding simple thoughts
Into dangerous words.
And in the womb of your sighs, a disfigured shadow
Sits down to feast on pretty pictures
That can never be.
My circus smile belies the brilliant weight of stars.
In the thick murder of sleep
Where dreams are a trick of the light
You have come undone like a house of sighs
Spilled from my blood....

I can feel the world die at my feet tonight
Nothing but ashes left of a careless act
And reckless words that were better left unsaid

Does it help that I thought those words
Were what you needed to hear to make it easier for you?

I left you, back to the wall this time
With few alternatives and no way
To find the path home to a heart
That is slowly breaking from his own foolishness

I have no bitterness - I love you too deeply for that
Only the acrid after taste of a word I loathe - regret

I would undo it all, stitch by stitch, if I thought it would make amends.
I would take it apart and refashion it into the beautiful arch of your smile
I would repaint the world in the color of the soul that touched mine
And for one infinitesimal second in time, held it in the cradle of her heart.
I would fill it with the music of a private language that we once shared
Those words witnessed only by the wisp of moon that slipped between the sheets
Where the supple warmth of your body arched into mine.

I would trace a path across your shoulders
To the delicate sweep of your neck
And let my fingers linger there
Savoring the serenity that pulses in the hollow of your throat.

For just one last night to hold your world in mine...

Geisha Dream by ~lelioimmortalIS on deviantART

The night was crowded with voices, always a distraction that I had taken decades to learn to silence. But this evening it required no schooling...no act of magic or willpower on my part...her words alone had captured my attention...no mean feat when the predator decides to come calling. The conversation had started a brilliant spark and traveled to every known recess of my mind...ideas sparring at times..at others finding a comfortable home. There was magic here...a tapestry spun of words and thoughts that was spontaneous and unexpected...an agility of phrase...a quickness that seemed to almost move one step ahead of me. How for all the world can you know someone in a second and yet find her an unfathomable mystery?

I watched the crowd pass in the evening's soft blur above her shoulder, her hair a brilliant whip of chestnut, tossed carelessly like a child's toy in the breeze. She smiled...a trick of flickering shadows that curled around her lips...as she leaned into me, her voice becoming that intimate whisper of dark smoke saved only for lovers or those who know exactly where the edge dances in my veins...

"What is it like - the hunt - the taste?"

A question I am asked countless times, and yet this sounded new, as if the letters had been rearranged into a new language - slightly exotic and forbidden. There was a meaning there..a deliberate point....but I was left guessing as to its import. Her eyes were dark riddles...and her mouth shadowed each nuance of my thoughts... She sat, her fingers brushing the length of mine in that warm exchange of flesh touching mine for the first time..a visceral hum beating under my cool skin. I ran one finger down the back of her hand, my thumb closing over the fragile pulse straining against her wrist. I have toyed with people before on this subject...giving them the gory and garish details they seem so hungry to assimilate as if they wished to claim the experience as their own...vicarious living at its finest...and I can always be counted on to deliver a masterpiece. It is not all that difficult to feed into fantasies, really...and yet this time I had a hunch the rules had vanished into her wishes.... So be it...turn about is fair play.

I grasped her wrist suddenly, pulling her body against mine in a warm slash of night....I could feel her breath catch and the soft release of her will as her cheek found my shoulder...my lips caressing the words against her ear.

"My needs are simple, chere...one basic elixir..born of your kind...found in every pair of feet that tread the countless miles of this earth...world without end, Amen. It does not really matter if I need it or not...it is not like the comfort of mortal hunger even at its sharpest. And while simple, my palette is a complex monster that would rival any connoisseur in your world. Feed me the swollen heart of what your kind calls monster...those who tear carelessly into the innocent and devour them from within and give it no thought. Their blood is a succulent draught..base honey and acrid copper, flecked with no hope of salvation or saving grace. The killing game is simple and fierce...or I can prolong it, my mind a savage map of my victim's alienation...and dear God, do I ever love to play it out for hours at a time. Killing is an art I have honed on the wicked edge of my own want...and time. I count hell in nights, ma belle."

No movement on her part...my words have not tempted or disgusted...there is no judgment either way, only an acceptance of a half made revelation. Or am I being led into a more provocative confession? My voice becomes more urgent..and her breath is a silent plea teasing the night into something holy...

"Yes...you know what I am about to say...and you want to hear it. The unspeakable...from the lips of the beautiful monster who holds you like a prayer at his side. The blood of innocents..dear God...how do I even begin to describe it? A primal root that starts its thread in the sunset of your eyes...that spreads in delicate tendrils around a heart that wonders and stands in awe of the uncaring world...that nurtures dreams which most of the world ignores or deems as foolish..that grows into an unbearable lightness of being that sees only possibilities where others see only shame and regret... It is a taste that is ethereal...ripe dreams, just plucked from hope and a view not tainted by greed or artifice. Seductive and rich...irresistible to the damned...in spades, sweet girl."

There...delivered to her...her fate for being there at exactly the right time...for listening and lingering. For being the one who dared to understand and expect the truth. But not tonight...and we both knew it. It would be a slow unraveling of wills...for us both. Time was going to play its hand for once, turning one card at a time...

What is the little kink...or quirk...in human nature that causes people from our past, especially those we are not fond of, to resurface and try to lay claim to our attention again? What makes them think there is some spark left that with a few simple apologies, a friendship...or more...can be rekindled and molded into something new and beautiful? Perhaps I do burn my bridges with too little regard to the fallout...perhaps my door slams with a resonance that brooks no murmur of hope in the thin arc of light that spills from under its sill...and perhaps the word "final" is too glib on my tongue. But memories are potent...it does not take much to stir their shadows, and give them wing and find them tongues...

My memory is a bitter burn this evening...one that does not wish to be bothered with the whispers of reconciliation....

My Top Ten Rules:

Rules are meant to be broken

No sycophants allowed.

I will always re-spin and change the rules...usually at the last minute and without any warning.

Do not overlook the little things...the devil is in the details.

Boredom is not allowed. It is the last circle of hell...

Lead, follow or get the hell out of my way.

I always have the last word, even when I am wrong.

I may on occasion forgive...but I do not forget.

I am more than willing to listen to and entertain your opinions...just please do not try shoving your beliefs on me.

Do not involve me in your personal drama...I can whip up enough of my own. Besides...I am a leading man...with a solo act.

Blood...five redolent letters playing across my lips and tongue. A faint flush of scarlet...a veil that gently pumps what you hold dear into me. I can choose to make it an act of love...a prayer or song of offering, a gentle climax of unclaimed want; or I can rip it from you with a force that leaves us both blind with lust. The choice is mine to make...you have no voice in the sweet hell that throbs in my veins...you only serve a need that you cannot even recognize as something you once owned and understood...

So savor what passes this evening for an embrace...my fingers running under the worn collar of your shirt as my touch turns rough edges into silk and you stain my want with a violent crimson hush....

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