#decayed-inamorata

[seventh-sulfur]

I never wanted to fall in love again—with a person, at least. I knew I had been taken away by an inferno of hopeless mourning that would never relent. Those brushes were hurried, [...] incessantly. I always painted with the violent weeps of my heart; however bitter they tasted, however hard they were to swallow. Did you know what I once wished upon seeing the shooting stars? I wanted to be free from the scorch of my tears and the sting of their bitterness / to use my brush on the night sky without the feeling of burning. I needed a heave of peace, of beauty, of a muse—as much as a flower needs the air it breathes.

And there came—you. We used to paint under the delicate sun; when I depicted the most exquisite of shapes / your fingertips smoothed out each grain of color with such awe that it seemed like magic. Your presence was just as pleasing as the sight of Galatea; I was Pygmalion who savored every single scintilla of beauty from ritz to the rubble. I wished to be the sole one who could see the brightness of you that it would shame those stars and strangely eclipse the darkness within my dusk-enraged heart. You trusted me to make something better from the chaos of my dimly-written life which, unbeknownst to me, had already caressed my heart and kissed my very bones until I am left with little to no trace of what once made me smolder; the withering scars, the lingering frowns, the unlit bristles—one nudge did they fade away. / You made me enchanted by a love that I'd never thought could ever find its way back to me again.

Ah, there was another thing that I wished for the stars to hear. This was when the cold, crisp autumn breeze rustled my hair as I sat on the petrichor-scented window sill—if love ever knocks at my door anew, I hope it's you standing behind it. [...] I'm glad it was you.

[rvioletprince27]

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Sweet sapling boy now being nourished by honey and sunlight. Cradled by the oaken bough. Rooting in the warm soil that smells like a whisper of decay. My inamorata gently speaks to me like a dream yet awakens embers once thought suffocated. An undemanding gentle burn that warms my cheeks until they are flushed and hot.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

[seventh-sulfur]

Of pan dulces and meringues, of all things sweet—when your lips are tangled around mine in Amalfi's air and your smell stirred along after it has been plowed by. A sugar on fresh breadcrumbs; ants left me all bitten and raw. All you did was tend the bites with a hand softer than charmeuse and kisses more delicate than chamomile until my hertis rote turned to the taste of Sfogliatelle in the winter sun. / You made me twinge in every single bone / a canged heart praying amidst the tears yet froze as you appeared. Before I knew it—you were my own divine and I was willing to take away my salvation for the love you were to give to me. You had a heart as pristine as the glistering white of snow and a smile that was like the sweet sun breaking through a cloud in summertime. A godly beauty that even Icarus would dare to be harmed by your hymns—[...] in your eyes shone light that could pierce steel, so gleaming were you.

You let me breathe sweet verses made of etched proverbs and woven nectars: "Éros splintered my mere bones into soft stardust", it seemed. I gave my retina on the apricot-velvet solitude amidst fragrant springtime orchards and it allowed me to see an angel, [...] you, in Amyclae's Paradiso with gaillardias in your hair. Your halo radiated like daylight was spilling over you / raindrops that caressed Aphrodite's cheeks—always so delicate and never harsh, it reached on my bare skin and not my pale ivory. You were my desire from the garden at the foot of Thebes' cliffs to the greenhouses along the banks of Maeander—you were all I could dream of when my eyelids fluttered open, each drenched with dew. Your honey glazed over me like a balm; messy touches enveloped my body until I reeked of you and turned me to dust beneath your fingertips.

It seems like even my mind was splintered by you.

[seventh-sulfur]

I find myself grieving for something that did not really exist. My corolla is still growing; then has the lingering unease a little hushed. I know I will bloom. I want to smell of a delicate flower and not a blossom drenched in borrowed light. But then no one has been watering my stinky base! I cannot know my worth without someone's validation. [...] It is getting more and more smelly. How will I attract people to take care of me if I breathe distressed chants all the time lest all the days I spent were passed so miserably? Ah, but I cannot show my vulnerability because if I start weeping... It will mean I am giving up and to live sad is a death sentence—a monster in me that I should never unleash. No claw to trace toxins on my stamens yet it has heaviness to bury my worth in a shallow grave.

I find my tears falling on another creation—a human—and I get to see them blackened. I was a flower of such sorrowful color yet You created many colorful petals and integrated them on me. To You I wept for a gift of favor, but may I ask why they had a heart of breathing manhood while I had decay burgeoned within me? Maybe this is just a sudden monachopsis [I'm out of place]; I know I have a lovely form and I balter with brief hope. Are you not pleased? They are PRAISING me now! From a plethora of bashful nights' dreams turned into the daringness of dawn due to His thaumaturgy... / Vulnerability is not the one devouring my principles—but my desperation. / Torment is a hollow mockery of my beauty as I am condemned to be a disaster for how many years have I languished in the mud to be flying again—only to fall back.

Right. I find myself grieving for something that did not really exist. Why do I have cuts all over me?

[seventh-sulfur]

My skin is smooth and unblemished—the sweet birth of spring's first Morning Glory. I am red, from the tips of my toes to my forehead. I am crisp, from the edges of my eyelids to the center of my collarbones / I am a bright red blooming amidst jasmine-green summertime air. I bleed the very same crimson I was once made of; my flesh oozes out golden, sweet liquid to be drunk on by you as soon as it is found—until I am mottled and marred. [...] My juice has no purpose than to flow into your hands. You ravished me as if I am a fit apple left for you to pluck off the branch; I reeked of fructose and I am embodied in putrefaction upon your tongue.

My father always told me to take the risk. "Better to face the rot head-on than to wither," he'd say. You have yet to taste the fullness of my mouth but only sipped my ichor, thus I am still enough for you to savor me—until the ants within you have embedded themselves into my pores. / I DO NOT NEED TO WITHER. DO I? / I gave you my all. I gave my utter essence for you to consume. I am your lifeblood, your salvation, your crown, and your ruin. If you find your soul separated from mine then so be it, but know that my skin has already been bare. / MY LIFE IS WITHIN YOUR STOMACH. / You were the ambrosia I enjoyed devouring; I was yet another poison that crept in and settled in your mouth that you liked to consume. Bring yourself to swallow the poison of my hysteria or until you succumb to my own venom.

And it was true. I took the risk of letting myself be consumed by you, and you lost the chance of ever tasting anything—but a rotten apple.

[seventh-sulfur]

If wrath could be distilled into a single drop of liquid, that single drop would taste like the bitterness of molten iron and the acrid sting of red-hot coal dust / a sharp metallic tang that burns the back of my throat when I swallow / a taste as honed as a blade against the skin as if angels are ripping through my flesh. [...] They are leaving red welts on my blood-stricken soul until my chest is burning with heat. The taste of copper fills my mind and body until everything is ablaze; every atom and molecule of me mixes with the scent of scorching metal and ash. I used to believe that angels sing melodies of saccharine-love that gave hope to those who heard their voices and clung to their words—that made me think I was doing good deeds when in fact I was only doing bad. Nothing but liars who lied to keep my head above water. The angel's songs were not always pure; they sounded like the roar of the fires that devour their prey and I was willing to sink myself into a bottomless pool of hypocrisy if it meant finding salvation from my sins. THEY DEAFENED ME AND DROVE ME MAD. They suffocated me with my devout cries and made me wonder if I had any hope left in me to pray or if all that remained was the stink of abomination / the burning, searing pain of wrath licking my bare feet—I AM A SINNER AND I CAN NO MORE SAVE MYSELF.

I am a curse that extended its own sullied wings but now have been stripped of feathers and plucked at, shredded, and torn apart; they lay limp as uselessly discarded feathers—the blackened remains of something long dead. Yet you still kissed me a while ago. I'm no longer of benevolent plumes; my soul is corrupted and not to be treated in any way except with the utmost contempt. / I AM NO HUMAN TO BE LOVED. / My wings have painfully carved my sins down on them and I bled with all those wounds that were given upon me. Yet you smiled at me and it felt like an arrow pierced through my non-existent heart then killed me all at once. The likes of me deserve solely hatred and scorn but you looked at me as though you loved my sins all along, that I was still an angel yet filled with anguish. [...] You are my religion. My love was never false if the altar cup is always full and my mouth is always open to fill up my plate. I don't want to hurt your pristine skin with my fiendish claws nor do I wish to stain your purity with my sinful blood yet at the same time, even just for once, I want to be selfish. You can't love me but I want you to love me. You can't touch me but I want you to touch me over and over again. I have fallen but I want your kisses to heal my wounded wings. All wrapped together, twisting through every limb and muscle—my teeth. I'd remove my teeth for you. I will bear to have a single, twice, or thrice, of my teeth taken out. I want you to stop me from falling; I want to be someone who did not die when I should have died. Consume the devil in me bit by raw bit. I'm willing to give everything up for you. Every feather of my torn wings, every tear on my face, even to burn every crevice of my body knowing I'm going to rot with my sin, [...] tasting like bittersweet death on my tongue.