Home | ( Poetry | Outside ) | Links

"Nina...carefully took her heart 
from Grishunya's hands
and nailed it to the bedstead."
~ Tatyana Tolstaya, "The Poet and the Muse"

They were sitting in a hotel in Pittsburgh,
playing with her crystal ball
on the floor,
rolling it up her arms, down her arms, 
with near skill and grace.
He confessed that she'd stolen his soul,
the half that wasn't lost someplace in Texas
to her mirror image,
silent girl in a cloud of silks,
who never answered his letters.

It meant only that, nothing more,
on the first of many long nights,
and the ball bounced on the marble floor,
and did not break.
He told her not to.

It was ironic, she thought,
remembering when she'd bought the crystal ball,
thinking of old ballads,
how apt it was,
clear plastic replacing 
the golden ball of her virginity.
College had stolen more than her soul,
and replaced it with something alien and beautiful,
she thought,
and it didn't bother her.
It seemed beautiful,
and she gave herself to it
gladly.

They were lying in his bed,
a bed only in the loosest interpretation of the term,
toying with the forbidden,
with the inevitable.
Hours passed, and they slept,
or he did;
she lay watching his body,
beautiful in sleep,
in innocence again,
helpless and trusting against her own.

She stroked the soft skin of his chest,
so sensitive, yet he didn't move,
didn't notice.
It was beautiful that he slept so fast.
It worked to her advantage.

Fingers gently probing,
found the panel with the serial number,
peeled back the skin over his chest,
and he moves now,
unconsciously,
raising an idle hand to feel what she is doing,
but she moves it away lovingly.

Fingers gently pressing between ribs
to find his heart, hard and hot and pulsing.
He moves again,
and she stops,
her own pounding in her ears,
perfectly horribly still,
until she is sure he is asleep,

then 

fingers move slowly, rhythmically
to separate the layers of muscle,
layers of bone,
timing each move as his chest rises and falls,
until she can lift it,
slowly, from the cavity,
and raise it to her lips, 
still throbbing.

Tongue tenderly caressing the surface;
smoother than skin,
it tastes of blood and memories,
her own private heat regulation system,
lips slowly exploring,
the chambers moving in rhythm,
the veins tense,
pumping blood onto the floor,
into her mouth,
in a seemingly endless stream.
Her lips envelop it 
and it fills her mouth,
all the way,
and she swallows,
forcing it inside her,
feeling it slide,
warm and rich and metal-flavored,
into her belly.

A thought;
she takes the clear glass ball, 
and places it in the cavity.
It fits, exactly,
and glows ruby
working with a strange magic.
He'll never know.

Choking on blood, she smiles, victorious,
stretches beside him, 
curls to sleep.

Mine, 
only mine!
Torn between triumphance and self-loathing,
she trembles,
finally sleeps,
lying beside him.
Raw power,
I fear power,
but it is so strong,
so heady,
so beautiful.

He woke to the fumes 
of whatever she was using to clean up the blood.
The apartment was a mess,
it seemed like a good idea,
she said.

He nods, sleepily,
closes his eyes again.
She watches him sleep,
feels his heart in her belly,
knows he is hers,
forever.

That's a terrible story.
The prince, innocent, behind the glass,
the princess climbing the walls of the tower,
his long black hair as a slippery ladder,
legs bit by roses,
to ravish him where he sleeps.
And steals away into the night,
never to be seen.

Her child was fair as milk,
dark as sin,
they named her "Snow White,"
and fed her on the blood of forest creatures,
the deer, the birds, the squirrels,
until she was old enough to fend for herself.

Control?
Theirs was very much a power relationship.
Me whispering into the almost-darkness,
do you want to know?
As if my secrets were any different
from any other woman's.

I love you,
with a frightened, shaking love,
my heart hidden someplace distant,
where the odd bolt of lightning
nonetheless will strike it,
and no one will know why I cry.

When the prince came home with the beautiful princess,
sleeping beauty,

I found her dreaming fast,
at the top of a phallic symbol,
in the middle of the woods,
he told his wife,
and went on to try to explain the two children she was carrying,
how did he really expect her to react?
Of course, she wanted to devour the children,
wanted to rip out Snow White's heart,
and show it to her,
before taking that fair skin into her own bed,
stroking back the black hair,
kissing the red lips,
the pale breasts,
telling her what must do
if she wanted her children to live.

I want true love,
so badly,
the instant happily ever after,
and the children with moons on their foreheads 
and silver sides.

A thousand quests in between,
and long, typed conversations,
life growing fractally ever stranger,
dreams shattering into new dreams,
with crystalline certainty.

But I can't read you,
the crystal ball is too full of my dreams,
and yours,
and too scratched from falling on the concrete sidewalk,
for it to tell me anything at all,

if it ever could.

She woke from the daydreams,
with the taste of her mother's milk acutely on her tongue.
Such a strange thing to remember,
with such strange thoughts.

I don't want to take over your life,
make you my own,
destroy you.
But the words resonate.
And they shouldn't.
And it scares me.