Hands fidget under the cover of darkness.
They reach and burn, so willing
to tear each other apart
their fingertips brand their surface
into the earth
to revel in the blood pooling beneath them.
I can feel the touch of Paranoia
on the back of my neck,
can hear her whispering a melody
of broken bones and twisted branches
pulling at my skin. The bitter bile
seeps from her mouth when she kisses me,
promising that the sweet relief of loss
will never come back to retrieve
what it so eagerly forgot.
There's a fire burning, eating her eyes,
dissolving the tip of her rotting tongue as she sings
and lingering, dancing, on her skin.
Her hands could be music or taste
dwelling softly on your lips
but they are the thunder of broken
chords, the discord of dying
wolves howling the same song, decade
after decade, to moonless skies. Hatred blooms
in dripping clusters beneath her feet,
biting my heels and twisting
until they find my spine and pull, pull it
into the depths of the earth, replacing it
with acidic vines which poison
the flesh of my body and leave me,
blind, waiting for the paralysis of death.