One
No need for an introduction,
She was murder incarnate, volatile pandemonium.
She was always gone by the morning’s pale light,
No pins could stick her, pretty glass doll.
She was his tangible addiction,
Sweeter than any pixie sugar,
Yet poisonous as a viper.
“Phantasmagoria,” she’d breathe,
Her words freezing and falling, broken diamonds.
“What?” his confusion so sweet.
She cackled then,
Chaotic grins folding over gossamer silk.
He just shook his head,
Knowing she was a tragedy.
He could never hold her,
Thorns tore ragged lines into him every time he tried.
She was his to have, to gaze at,
But never to touch.
She was intransigent, lying eyes and battered lips,
Scars tugged at his heart whenever he looked,
Bleeding masquerades of perfection in her curves.
Porcelain masks adorned with crimson feathers,
So shocking against the ebony walls.
The masks were like her smile, he had decided so long ago,
Hanging a new one every six months.
He saw right through her.
Two
Malignant words bubbled from her lips,
She blew him EXPLOSIVE kisses,
Her eyes full of iridescent splendor and charm.
She gave herself to him completely,
Tired of running on the fuel of a thousand shattered hearts.
Pale like winter,
He was fierce like autumn leaves in a fiery glow.
His eyes were a swirl of blue,
So deep, hypnotic and entrancing.
His hair was black as a crow,
Soft as velvet against bare flesh.
He was beauty in a terrible splendor,
Pale, carved marble, breath-taking and alive.
His kisses were spider-silk,
Dripping venom down her throat.
“Extemporaneous,” he’d sigh,
His words left behind the after taste of chocolate.
“Everything is,” echoed her bittersweet reply.
Chemical smoke poured from his mouth,
When he parted his lips to speak.
She loved the way it danced in the glow of the fire.
Three
The curve of her smile let you see the whole asylum.
Oh how she’d laugh, broken glass in her eyes,
When he’d nibble her flesh so softly.
Her eyes flashed red,
A brief shutter speed of a moment.
He’d saunter up to her,
Leather pants worn as a second skin.
His eyes glittered in the dark,
The ocean by moonlight.
He spun her in dizzy circles.
“Vertigo baby, you spin me high with vertigo,”
He’d laugh, watching her stumble.
They were psychotic lovers in a masquerade of midnight frenzies,
Graveyard picnics and ballroom dancing the mausoleum.
They were a Gothic fairytale without the ever-after,
Kings fighting for their queens,
That and the dragon ate the kNight.
Moonlight tans and wrought-iron fences,
They kept the world at bay.
“No one needs to know,” she whispered beneath the crying tree,
“Let them wonder in solitude,” her voice soft as a feather.
The zephyr smelled of ice and heartbreak.
Four
Silver needles with glitter tips,
Pulled star-studded thread through her lips,
Anything to keep the lies from spilling out.
“Desperate hours call for drastic measures,”
Barbed-wire bled from familiar tongues.
Tiny symbols on her lover’s face,
A black mask stitched with silver Zodiac charms.
He was her hero in Venetian adornments,
If you ignored the combat boots.
SAFTEY,
An over-rated opinion.
(Throw away the key.)
The pond froze over,
Reflecting dark-eyed ghosts of glass.
The paint on the masks cracked,
The feathers faded long ago.
He held her close,
Feeling her thorns tear him o p e n.
He bled sweet metallic candy for her.
She’d be gone again in the morning.
Five
She sighed, keeping perfect rhythm with the visions in her eyes.
The cold seeping slowly into every pore,
Electrifying ever nerve and fiber.
Haunting whispers on the wind,
Reminders of another life.
I’ll love you forever; I miss you already,
She scrawled in black ink on the bathroom mirror.
He scrubbed for weeks,
But the message never faded.
Then you shouldn’t have left,
He painted in slow red cursive beneath it.
He’d always wait for her.
Six
So innocent when she pouted,
Lying little girl with a cracked doll’s mask,
Just like the faces he hung on the wall.
When she smiles, the truth comes out,
The perfect killer with the perfect guise.
She’d blow chemical rings to your heart,
Knowing how deep they’d cut.
She savored the taste so bitter and sweet,
Liquid candy, deep red cherries.
He relished the glitter in her eyes,
When she was off on another “Suicide Mission”,
As her friends so poetically dubbed them.
He bound himself to her,
With black lace chords and red wrist ribbons.
They lusted for a never-ending destruction,
No amount of chaos could sate their desire.
“You are a tragedy,” he once told her,
“A million deaths in the making.”
She always laughed at those words,
Tears stinging her face when she was away.
“I’m your tragedy, my love,” she called sweetly to the wind.
Tie the mask tight,
Check the powder around your eyes,
Lace up that corset,
This job is just a masquerade.
Shade is not your name,
And the Emancipator knows it.
He’ll keep your secret as long as you work,
Pretty little murder doll.
“I miss him,” she whispered,
Her eyes so full of sorrow.
“Then go home,” he told her.
Simple phrases break hearts the fastest.
Seven
Her hand trembled, eyes wide, so fearful,
This homecoming no different than the dozens before it.
He opened the door before she could even caress its silver handle.
Startled, he stood there and gaped,
Trying to convince himself that she had actually come back.
“Five years is a long time to be gone without calling,” he whispered,
A shaking hand brushed the hair from her eyes.
She caught his hand,
Pressed it hard against her face,
Her tears carved shallow channels down her cheeks.
“I missed you.”
He glanced away,
His hand dropped to his side like a stone,
“Then you shouldn’t have left.”
She knew he was right when she turned to leave again,
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, almost choking on her words.
He grasped her wrist,
Pulled her into his arms, clutching her tightly,
His blue eyes deep puddles.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
Eight
She was home for a moment,
Maybe even longer,
To dance upon his paper heart.
(Look at those steep red stilettos.)
He was happy for a moment,
Maybe even longer,
To have her in his arms again.
(No matter how deep the thorns cut.)
“Aniya, my dear, you’ll be the death of me,”
He sighed, holding his lips to hers.
“I’ll be the death of myself,”
She replied sardonically, entwining her fingers in his hair.
They were restless, half crazed in the heat,
The terror mounting passion in fire,
So cold it burned flesh from the bone.
They were the purest form of calamity,
A delicate sense of fatality,
Like lightening through a sea of metal.
“Damien, my love, you are my addiction,”
She purred, her hands caressed his face.
“Likewise, my darling,” he smiled,
He pulled those pale hands to his lips.
Nine
The tension mounted outside those wrought-iron gates,
A war bubbling to the surface,
The first of many, a battle for the ages.
Lace up those ebony heels,
Tie the corset tighter and tighter,
Dizzy from the pressure.
Make sure all the swords are sleek as blood,
Clear as the freshest waters.
Slick back the hair,
Tie the mask tighter and tighter,
He was dizzy from the anticipation.
Make sure all the guns have silver bullets,
And all the spears have jagged edges.
The troops rained in,
The fire arms screamed,
Eagles of flame danced in the sky.
Celebrations started before the dust could even settle.