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Winter has taken hold of my heart.
In the dark of night she slunk in, leaving frosty-footprints on the glass,
and sang me to sleep with lips as soundless as an owl's wing-feather,
dusting my eyes with powder to help them seal shut.
With snowy fingers she incised my breastbone
and plucked my ribs like the petals of the last flower:
one for me, one for her, one for me…
they cascade to the floor, white and crumbling.
She raised herself up, back arching, and drove her feelers
- silvery tentacles, glistening like dew -
through my system, latching herself onto me,
drilling nails into the soft-spots on my bones.
She hooked my veins together like a bundle of cords and seeped down into them like battery-acid:
eating away at my nerves until only the tips of my fingers
remembered how to feel.
She stroked my heart, cooing softly,
thumb and forefinger reaching down with elegance and demonic-grace
to take that tiny thrumming machine into her hand,
and--
…twist…
I could not even cry for what I had lost.
Copyright © Elizabeth Nathaniel | Year Posted 2012
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