Collecting Souls.
Added 2022-04-01 05:50:00 +0000 UTC
When I turned sixteen my father brought me,
a string of white pearls, cold and unblemished,
to put around my neck when I needed dignity,
but as they reflected my eyes all I could see,
was a violent insanity, broken and diminished,
captured in ornamental propriety for all infinity.
I wrapped the blanched beads around my wrist,
and armed myself with weapons of sordid want,
as I painted my mouth in the colours of desire,
with my destiny I had planned a perverse tryst,
with sweet and ornate words I learnt to taunt,
and with unspoken touches to light a wild fire.
With sullied red lips I kissed my father goodbye,
as I carried my elastic black heart far, far away,
to a land where I could be called by any name,
where the rules I made said I could cheat and lie,
where with glass souls I could unceasingly play,
and laugh when they shattered under my pain.
I learnt to play lover to such utmost perfection,
that they shuddered when they unveiled to learn,
the many roles like outfits I had lined inside,
but the audience doesn't need the information,
on what behind the curtain must forever burn,
for the show I put on to be an endless ride.
I could be soulful with wisdom and wax poetic,
or dismal and dark like the blackness of night,
or be the girl made of giggles and pure soul,
but the pearls around my wrist were prophetic,
each one the same by glare of bright white light,
each one played in the darkness a different role.
For deep in the ocean somewhere my story,
was carved by the cold hands of watery dreck,
from whom my unholy being I took on loan,
and when in a gruesome act so high and gory,
I tore pristine, colourless beauty from my neck,
I vowed never to have to keep a soul of my own.
