...In my drunken stupor she brought me water,
so it seemed only right to woo her
with words and caresses and compliments
about her pearly flesh in return for her kindness...
There must have been some warning.
A tone or expression for which I was deaf.
A sign or omen to which I was blind.
And so was caught in this evening embrace.
Because I strayed far too far and far too late
into the Lunatic's place.
I had lied about her pearly flesh
to avoid the truth of her sickly hue.
A pale, lifeless translucency
of grass growing regardless
beneath Fall's trampled leaves;
of wriggling worms hidden
from the Sun's sight
'neath the Moon's light
under a tire discarded.
So fumbling in the shadows
and doubt I stumbled
and reaching out,
grasped upon a sudden reason:
The Night is her Kingdom.
Where Phoebus is drunk again
holding a flask for seduction
and cash for collusion
because his cock has forsaken him.
And the moon and stars conspire,
like circus barkers in the darkness,
lighting her form in ivory splendor
for the next lost and lonely suitor.
The Night is Her Sanctuary,
protection from responsibility,
because the doors are not open
and the shades are always drawn;
because the bills cannot be paid
and there's nothing better to be done
when everyone else lives under the sun.
So I watched the night leaving,
seeping in to the far corners, daring
me to break the soft silent rhythm
of our breathing syncopated in stillness.
I watched her in Dawn's creeping light,
a curious moment curled in twilight.
An angel suffering from sin
with no halo, no harp, no wings,
condemned to this life in human skin.
And I turned up and rose away
to watch half alive as Yesterday
surrendered the mountain peaks,
beyond the rain pelted window haze,
past the bars keeping without within.
Against the day I drew the shades
and, fading deftly, left her as she lay
certain the daylight would kill her.
Probably not swiftly.
Probably not softly.
Probably not even bitter-sweetly
as some nosferatu tragedy
shrieking, melting, withering
or spontaneously combusting...
But quietly and slowly
like a chick still in it's shell
who's mother has left forgotten
her promissory prodigy
to crack her own world open.
