Come, Sweet Thing

Each caress along paper-thin skin

Is a ghost of him, drawing her to the edge

Stretching the beat of her heart to its limit

His breath is like the whisper of ice

Enticing her to surrender with the path of his lips

Uttering sweet nothings along her neck.

Come, you sweet thing.

“No…” she cries

She draws away from the mirror

Unable to witness the rose of her cheeks

The return of the smile, the shedding of black skin

Only the red, swollen eyes of the creature remain

She watches the last tear fall, a diamond drop suspended

With a bitten, red nail she traces its scar on her cheek.

Come, you sweet thing.

She opens the closet

Takes out a shirt and hopelessly searches for the cologne

Spicy-sweet—she can’t remember the brand

Hates how it’s disappeared from his clothes

From his favorite chair—

While he spent nights watching movies, she watched him.

And the bed—

Rumpled sheets when love was made, two souls twisting within one body.

She picks up the pieces

Lets the ruptured light in through the curtain

It falls upon a photo in a beaten silver frame

Frozen faces, smiling, laughing eyes caught forever

The black and white of life is gone.

She looks into the sun and sighs

Life must go on even when the dead won’t leave.

Come into the light with me, my dear.