pompeii runs through our veins,
hot with the taste of ash & decay.

some of us are fortunate enough to
become ruins; others are ruinous,
sepulchers of epidemics, air-born, contagious.
a disease that could make London a cemetery.

we dress ourselves up like relics, clothed
in silk and gold and gossamer,
as if they could one day be armor.
as if they could bring us safety.
as if we deserve such things when everything we touch rusts.

it takes only twenty-two years for the
average person to realize they are a weapon.
that words are knives and actions are razor blades,
as if to remind the living that we
came into the world screaming—
and we have never been silent since.

we are the Morrigans, the cursed women,
those whose destiny is entwined with death.
we court death, invite her to our dinner table every night,
let her sleep in the guest room, leave the doors and
windows unlocked for her.

death, we realize as women forced to bear
the weight of the dead on our shoulders,
never comes as a thief.
she comes as a lover, smelling of lilac, a grin
too white and too large to be human.

still, we invite her in,
because even death, regardless of form,
makes for better company than the empty dark.