they are like constellations of stars
flung across the infinity of my cheeks.

they are like suns and moons
my face is the cosmos.

my face is a blank canvas
and they are the paints.

my face is the water
and they are the ripples that run through it.

my skin is my own
and they are there.
even when i don't want them to be
they will be.

just like everything else, normal.

love burns me with the fire of one thousand
blazing tongues of flame and heat
but
i welcome it to me and slowly
the beast quietens

only the breath of the slow moving ocean tide can ride the beast's hate away
to melt like ice in cool water
and slowly,
it does.

time heals the wounds born of fire and the beast sheds it's slippery skin,
through time,
the old, sad man with a face barren as winter trees,
the fire-bred spirit spitting magma
becomes not a beast but a simple light.

a candle, a night light for a child so scarred
only a mother's love can rekindle the flame of hope
once there.

and that is what love becomes.
love, the beast.
love, the beast?

walking past fountains of roses,
she caressed them with her hands.
soft petals kissed her fingers and
thorns, piercing the pads of her fingertips.

wandering to the golden pond, lying
down.
letting her hands play in the fronds of the grass,
flicking up glistening emeralds of water that
glimmered
in the sun.
flickering moons,
fresh diamonds,
new life so quickly taken.

roses
spurted as if from fountains atop messy beds
of lilies and lilacs,
jumbled together in a rush of colour that
seemed to have more and more detail
the more you gazed at it.

the sun shone
over the garden like liquid honey
melting over the peeling paint
of the white trellis that held
twining ivy
and heavily scented jasmine in its grasp.

and there, glazing the morning garden,
lay an aureate, flaxen
glow.

she sped down the hill;
the cool wind flying through her hair and dancing
on her creamy, golden skin.

speckled with freckles,
her smooth hands gripped the handle bars
of her bike.

the machine seemed to quiver
under her fingers and
despite
being a little old and rusty,
let her fly
on oiled springs
and rubber pedals.