Nephelokokkygia

We met in a train wreck: her car blocked the tracks. 

She stood there and smoked and watched as it burned, licked her fingers and forked tongue and grinned at my sin while the barbs in my flesh stood in defense. 

I offered her whiskey; she offered her bed, so I laughed at my fate while I drank from the stars and ate of the Earth while Mercury rises and falls to the wind. 

Visions of fireflies in rusted out cars cold sleeping in hayfields still flickered and flashed with the words that she said.  

She paused and she screamed, two fists full of hair, and dropped to her knees as the blood she still wept on ochre stained lips showed how I lost her embrace.

Her eyes were long dead before I flew to the sun, molten wax searing flesh as I stared at the passed and forgotten forlorn who sang us the songs of rebellion and scorn.  

The leaders of violence sent wolves to our lair while she rose with the ashes and I gave in to rust for Gabriel’s cries kept the sirens cold silent. 

The felons and jokers all trembled and wept for her laughter and malice were all we had left as she fell to the earth when my dried blood displayed:  The deal had been done. 

I rock on my heels and curse at the sun for it lashes so cruelly at all I have done; the last of her screams still run down my back, her fingernail traces still glistening red. 

The scars of my scars pretend a defense and begin to shut down the feelings I’ve left while the time ran the night all blistered and burned and full of hindsight.

I cradle her hands as her bones turn to dust and the flames in her eyes burn the cities all down as black holes turn to devils and God trades the phoenix for whiskey and wine. 

Cigarettes are burning regrets of a life that’s fading faster than my memory, and these blue and fading tears will wash away dead flowers and the Ferryman.

She tattoos her soul on the back of my neck with her spike in my arm and her rope at my throat and her lust in my heart and her death on my mind: remorse swallows guilt as I chase down the dragon.

The pinch and the press are forgiving and patient, one at a time the fireflies die and clovers cast off  their seeds to the wind where the children are eaten by butterflies creeping. 

She climbs back to her feet and looks down at my grave, then smiles and whispers:

“I told you I saved.”