Strange Love

There is more than a hint of fear in the air.

Your pale face swims out of darkness, red lipped, dark eyed, sapphire glinting in the depths mocking my listless hands, slipping out of reach whilst your features dissolve, a mass of scarlet pigment melding with kohl and tears streaking down lines to pools at my feet that steam and seethe.

There is more than a hint of pain in the air.

Slowly fingers trace the outline of my jaw, serrated edges peel back the skin, slip beneath muscle, stroke nerve endings, streaming white flashes round my body as raw meat separates from bone and purple veins cling to tendons clotting red against the white of your cheek.

There is more than a hint of violence in the air.

I incise my passion through your belly, teasing out intestines, winding round breasts, plaiting through auburn tresses, a wreath of offal to praise your beauty, an offering of blood to sate your thirst.

There is more than a hint of greed in the air.

You draw back the sheath, separate femur from pelvis, suck back the marrow, pull strength from the velvet meal, rising to the sky moaning as fire melts your eyes.

There is more than a hint of lust in the air.

I open your back, probe through spine and stomach, draw the outline of your liver, paint bile across your heart, tear open ventricles and palpate your soul wrapping it shroud like over our bodies.

There is more than a hint of love in the air.

You bite my lip, coil around and inside, insinuate yourself into my arms, sink through my skin and wear me, enshrined, whole, complete, reborn.