The roses are dead headed

as time kisses wire with frost,

a brush of rust tangling

like a threat.

I feel darkness in the air

and thoughts that reach out,

Ripping the cobwebbed veil.

You tap away at my door and

I listen as your whispers gather

around me in an incandescent web.

I know you wait for me

beneath the full, uncapped moon.

As I watch the fire fall to ash,

you cast a damned imprint

on my retina,

emblazoning your beauty like salt.

But nausea curls up inside me

like a red crescent

as I see the veined outline of

a hungry creature

consuming brackish fluid

to nourish itself.

But still I’m caught in your web

and I sway unmoored and loose,

losing my edges

overlapping with yours.

You reach for me and I’m afraid

that you’ll touch me,

that you’ll stop touching me.

I’m frightened

that you’ll split my skin completely,

cleaving me open like a pomegranate

spilling ruby pearls into the earth.

Your incisors go deep,

and I feel panic beneath the joy

of dissolving

into the hole that is your mouth,

as your hunger bleeds me into the sky.