rakuen

‘it is only glass,’ he says, smiling with claret lips,
‘it is broken, as you are, and always will be.’

*

he told me things that i’ve never heard
from a human mouth before.
he composed verses with poetic ease
and left me buried in longing.
my mouth ached to kiss him.
i wanted to swallow his words whole
and taste the experience of his tongue.

‘your silence is my treasure.
i will fill you with discoloured dreams and unreachable joy.
i will give you desolation and despair as gifts of my mystery
and i will ask for nothing in return.’

his smile was a sharp edge, a curved sword,
metallic and paralysing,
hidden beneath the false sincerity of his eyes.
it was a jagged coast dishonoured by the cold ocean
that resembles his soul,
full of the darkness that the moonlight will not touch.
he was a silhouette
against the dancing lights of northern skies.
he came closer to whisper in my blushing ear,

‘i will only eat your heart.’

in the depths of those fathomless eyes were a thousand souls
that were defeated and repressed.
within the voice that seduced me were the voices of those
he destroyed with the fire of his devouring mouth and skilled fingers.
contained in his laughter, i could hear the echoes of
the sorrows in the world.

‘i adore the sadness of your eyes
and your childlike hurt,
when you realised i am not what i seem.’

‘but you’re all that i have.’ i wept into his hair
and pulled at his unresponsive arms.

‘i am the part of you that god misplaced,
you are the other half that completes me,
but I promise not to tell you that
these are lies borne of practice.’

he blindfolded me, guided me through the shadows
of my tormented mind.
all the while whispering nothings into my ear.
i soaked up the carefully fabricated reality
he laid out for me, like crumbs for pigeons,
as he sat and watched.
amused.

‘we are one, you and i,
you are the wood that feeds my fire.
when the end comes, i will destroy and burn all that you are.
i will desecrate your body.’

the pain wrought by pleasure
was sharper than the blade of his smile
and i fell into the intensity of his deceptions.
for who could resist the serpentine charm
of a god full of intent?

i enjoyed the violation of my body,
as surely as the night worshipped the moon.
his hands on my naked skin caused every vein in my body
to be aflame with agony and desire.
only he alone could bring me to my knees.

he was my poetry
and i was in love.
i could not let go.

*

the day he lifted the blindfold was the day i died;
i was a ruin of charred stones and torn walls.
he told me i was beautiful like this,
trembling and despairingly empty at his feet.

the glass case in which i kept my heart
carefully locked away
was now glittering shards upon the twilight floor.

‘love destroys people.
can’t you see what it’s done?
you are my paradise, love,
i will be your nightmare.’

upon his beautifully crafted lips was the unnatural claret of blood.

[ japanese ] rakuen

[ lit. trans. ] paradise, heaven