My heart is glass, surrounded by pain—
or pane— a window no one should tap,
yet everyone does. My mind is a registry,
waiting to be filled with letters and numbers,
each thought like a record of what I owe
and what I’ve lost.

I bank my worth on others, to write myself
as a blank cheque, but when you cash me
in, what if there’s nothing left?

Tap.
Tap.
Tap—

Could you please not tap too hard.
Fear splinters easy these days, like a dog
lunging at shadows, like me chasing
a rabbit I’ll never hold.

The bushes rustle— something unseen,
waiting to pounce, its teeth already in my
skull, mocking a fragile picture of my demise.
Laughter claws the silence raw—
don’t crack me up.

Because I’m only glass. And I’m only prey.
And I’ve been hiding all along, a glass rabbit
in disguise— already hearing the fractures
before you ever touch me.

Glass tears dance on the lawn of dreams –
offered sweetness at hand; while the Beast
breathes fire over frost; black fur coiled in winter’s
chill, his warmth a lie dressed in comfort.

He offers blindness as a blessing, the bliss
of the thoughtless path. In the silence of white
winter, you take his claw, mistaking it for a hand.
“To die for”—a morbid metaphor— what is the gift
of a Beast meant for?

Around him, the dancing lich spins— leeches
birthed  from tombs of need. A cliff that clefts;
as a cleft lip cannot speak the truth, it only bleeds.
Closed eyes cannot paint the dark—
but they stay loyal  to its canvas.

Left bereft—travelers avoid certain subjects:
being sick of yourself, tasting your own *****.
But hush now— we’ll skip the topic. Change the
subject. And bury that scent.

As she was sent; and of all the objects she takes
from the Beast—he cures grief with a sugar-coated sting.
But bittersweet is still a shade of sweet, it rots your teeth,
and maybe he works with the tooth fairy to collect what
decay leaves behind.

But in the cold, no one heals— they run to the hills,
as their heels are clicking in panic of snow-bitten ground.
Perhaps this time, Little Red took the wrong road—
and the wolf she met, has grown hungrier from
feasting quietly on empty bones.

      ....there's no-one to save her at all.

A sheep unshorn, a misfit star,
too wild for wool, too sharp for flocks.
It walked alone where twilight wept,
where mountaintops kissed silver clocks.

Judgment struck like feathered arrows,
but wounds grew wings and took to flight.
"I’ll carve my throne from nameless echoes,
build my own laws beneath the night."

Yet beauty whispered, laced with teeth,
a velvet snarl in hunger’s guise.
The wolves arrived—moonlit beasts,
with gleaming pearls of red-stained lies.

Beauty isn’t soft, nor kind, nor fair,
It’s a rare flame, wild in the air.
A mirage that shifts, a whispered disguise,
Wrapped in illusion, unseen to the eyes.

The sheep stood firm where darkness danced,
while others cursed the sky’s despair.
Was beauty love or sharpened fangs?
A question lost to midnight air.

Bound by fate or freed by choice,
it laughed—"I’ll fall, but not in fear."
For even flight can lead to chains,
and even wolves can disappear.