Dance Of Hades

I suppose they had been waiting for me. But the unfamiliarity of the place I arrived at had almost fooled me into believing that I might have escaped them. They were tapping their long fingers against the glass of the table. Right leg draped over left leg. Their long robes flowing seductively down to the floor. Their eyes with menacing slits watching me.

Even when I pulled into the driveway, it seemed like they might have been left behind. For on the long flight, the ease with which I managed to sleep, the gusto with which I tucked in the insipid meals they hadn't once intruded. Every mile further from the familiar and it seemed like I might be able to come to terms with it after all. Even as I opened the gate. Or walked up the stairs. Or rang the bell. Even as I was greeted with practiced indifference. Like all the other times.

Even then, it seemed like it was possible. As if one wasn't too far away from actually breaking free. Yet, as I set my bags down in the room and turned around to look, there they were. Flashing me their sinister smiles. Nail on glass making an impatient rhythm. I backed against the wall away from them. Hands against my throat to muffle my cry. And they broke into a silent laugh. Threw their heads back and held their abdomens as they toppled off their chairs with the glee of having taken me by surprise.

Again.

I slipped to the floor. Crumpled. From outside, the sun seemed to taunt me. Pick yourself up, you blackhearted vixen, he seemed to chide. But it was too late. I had been abandoned once more. Another round for them. None for me. And now they were lifting themselves off the floor and dancing their mad dance around me. Closer and closer. Louder and louder. Closer and louder. Louder and closer.

What Happens...

What happens to love unacknowledged?

Does it fester and turn fetid? Does it die prematurely? And is then remembered like a child's death. Forever young in memory, never growing old and bitter.

What happens to love unspoken?

Does it rumble impatiently like a sleeping volcano? Or does it boil and spill into gurgling streams that race down hillsides?

What happens to love unrequited?

Does it make you catch your breath every time you hear a name, a voice or a song? Or does it bring you a smile at past foolishness?

What happens to love abused?

Does it crumple and curl up like a dead leaf? Or does it wilt and wither like a dead flower? Or does it rot from the inside like a diseased tree contaminating all the other around it?

Splashes Of Colours

We used to speak in muted tones tinged with pinks and purples and lilacs.

Sometimes, we screamed in words of reds and blacks and maroons.

And now, we speak in silences of white and blue and sometimes opaque.

We speak in words not said to each other, at each other or for each other.

Words that hang in limbo. No one to claim it as their own. No one to nourish it. Or tend to it.

They are orphan words. They wander around the mind, slap haplessly against the walls of my heart. But mostly, it bounces off my skin.

Brown and beautiful, born of the Earth, made of clay and moulded carefully.

Smooth and tender to the touch. Like the petal of a flower. With a perfume you once recognized.

If you touch me now, will I break?

If you blow gently on my face, will it crumble in your hands?

If you hold me now, will I wilt?

If you talk to me, will I recognize your words?

Like Honey

Like the color of honey. Rich and mesmerizing.

One could lose oneself in its hypnotic lure.

I lift it to my lips. A whiff of heavy barley tickles my nose. I swish it around.

It swings gracefully around the glass. Lingering at the corners and slipping smoothly to the other side.

I touch it to my tongue and it tingles with anticipation.

I am already surrendering to the inevitable. It's one of those evenings.

You feel the melancholy coursing through your veins.

The toxic liquid burns down my throat and drops to the pit of my stomach that bursts into a ball of flame that rises stealthily into my lungs.

And I progress through the contents of my drink.

And the contents of this sadness in trance like movements wanders in and out of my mind.

The evening has just begun.

And time has slipped into a hazy notion of something that used to have significance and yesterday's wretchedness, today's silence and tomorrow's predictable emptiness dance in silence together.

Writhed

She writhed in pain. Screams escaped her dry lips.

No one heard her.

Probably, because it was all within her...

She's tied, chained.

To herself...

"Leave me," she screamed.

Someone smirked from above.

Pulled at her chains. Felt blood.

Someone laughed louder.

She pulled harder.

She's free...

Gazed at the chains that'd tied her,

Emotions...

Love Me

Love me, you had demanded,

like no one can ever love me.

So I obliged.

So obliging I was those days.

Not because you had asked,

but because there was no other way.

And even when you loved me less

(and others more)

I loved you with all I had.

For every one of them that loved you,

I had to love you twice as much,

if I were to be the one that loved you

most of all.

Do you love me, you would demand.

Yes, yes, yes I would respond,

eagerness in my heart.

I was determined to love you

like I had loved no one else.

Not because you had asked

but because I did.

Do you love me still, you would demand.

I would nod my head and hang it down

there were all those others you loved

(and who loved you)

My love shamed me but I loved you still

You were after all the one I loved

the most of all and the one whom I loved

like no one else could.

Will you always love me, you would demand

and I would cringe in response.

Yes, but make it stop. Make me stop.

I would always love you.

I would love you most of all.

I would love you like no one else did.

It was a curse.

Love me, like you did before, you would demand.

Till the damn curse wears itself out. I would think.

There were all those others you loved and those

who loved you still.

Only it doesn't matter now

whether you loved them more or loved me less

or I loved you most of all or loved you like no one else.

I would have loved you, like you had demanded

(and even if you hadn't).

Silence, Muse & Love

We do not speak,

not even in silences.

(It seems).

Nor do we acknowledge

important days

and important events

in each other's lives.

We have found our

voices, the voices have found

patient and impatient ears.

We have our muses,

they are well.

(Thank you for not asking,

I promise to do the same).

After all we tend to them

with the attention

of one who has lost

someone of significance.

(Yes, there is such a thing).

There is the charm of a new love.

There is the bliss of true love.

And then there is the love

that we have because we are grateful

that we are loved at all.