A mysterious being of immeasurable force.

She plays men like puppets
made to stretch every molecule
toward an unattainable fleeting notion of perfection,
only to have it yanked ever so abruptly out of reach. She sends them
spiraling into an emotionally sadistic cycle of perpetual
pain, punctuated by brief moments of blissful ignorance.
She is a siren of the soul, singing a song of promise that creeps out and lassoes the heart.

Her flowery perfume of victory effervesces toward the unknowing sailor,
filling the emptiness he has dug into himself. The smallest whiff spreads
hope - an invasive vine through the body,
wrapping around sinews, planting thorns like anchors
refusing to ease up their iron clad grip.

We hold onto this impossibly small beacon of light
as if our very lives depend on the grip
with which we keep this air of possibility, all the while
this very thing is what is pulling us down
into the watery crypt of depression – head over heels, plunging
deeper into the darkness so we no longer know which way is up.
It is here that she takes her prey. The once beautiful maiden is now
the innermost fear of man.

She engulfs her prey and the blackness follows.