Isolde's cracked; listing unevenly over the love letters that Tristan sent her

(long ago,

-this is a story that should start off with "once upon a time"-

but it doesn't.)

I'm in the corner

braiding my hair

while she whispers to his left over shadow:

"you don't

risk

the stumble,

if you have to place

to lie down

and

crumble."

Without unwanted hands to reassemble her ruble

she changes her name

outer flesh sifted

beneath her golden breasts.

(or walk away from the memory of what her hand felt like against his stubble)

she excused herself, her mother only noticed whenever she mumbled

nobody really clarified to me that she does in fact stumble

every once and a while.

She's part freak

and the other half

force

(of nature.)

And Tristan

with his rainbow grin

grabs a hold of her in the shadows, and when he leaves

she's left screaming:

"What about it?

What about his shadow on my wall.

Glow without skin"

He's parting

from her

while she's darting toward the window

to proclaim

the prophecy

as it plays out before my eyes.

I sit entwined

in her tears

too silent

to calm such fears

(I know everything

when I realize that I know nothing at all.)

I'm covered in visions;

women

when we we're all saints

and before

we became

devils

through men's eyes.

He really loves her;

I know that

like fact

unafraid

but my eyes cave in with eyeliner

and jealousy.

Tristin is covered in purple

molding

and melting

against the wall

where he watches

with slanted "why's?"

he always tries

but can never get close enough to her

at his uncles dinner table.

Immaculate are they

childhood moans

of pleasure

uncomplicated;

come

ply.

I'm shifting

uncomfortable in my loneliness

reading my books

while they swim in and out of each others veins

on the velvet couch

(they don't seem to notice

that I'm looking for silence tonight

not wishful thinking

of lovers

who we're meant to die anyway.)

Isolde's conquered

and she knows it

(or should I say that she likes it)

she wears his name

in her teardrops

when she flops in fright.

Their love letters are so old that they turn to ash between my fingertips

I can't read the language that they wrote in

but they define themselves like words

before me;

I use things like

"queen

martini

and cocktail mini"

to describe them

but it never fits right.

They tell me

that when they buried them

streams full of fish

washed up on the shore,

cats mewed

and sensible grown men roared,

not me though

I'm just sitting on the velvet couch

trying to translate their love letters across my skin

(I lay myself out like her

but am still as yet

untaken.)