LJ Idol - The Known Enemy
Through the summer haze
Through the green of my drink
Delicate as a luna moth's wing
I see her stride in.
Red hair as wild as an August sunset,
Black boots echoing on the bar's tile floor:
She, heralder of siren's call
She, with a voice that sways and poisons,
She, my undoer.
Our eyes meet.
My hand chokes my sweating glass
And the world swirls darkly
Around the edges of my vision.
My soul rises to perch on the upturned edge of her crimson smile.
Once more I am awash in her soft and breathy hellos,
Inhaling them like nag champa, head spinning.
Once more I am consumed by how it ended,
The memory of a sputtering candle spinning slowly on broken floorboards.
I refuse to be that dying ember.
She will not put me out again.
I stand and feel my heels sink down, grounding me, spine straightening.
I take my heart back from the empty-sky blue of her eyes and tuck it safe under my arm.
She will not put me out again.
I pluck my soul back from her bloody lips like grabbing an old friend's shoulder.
I feel my self slide home, behind locked doors that only I get to open.
I feel my self burn bright, lighting up windows and rooms that have been dark for too long.
She will not put me out again.