killing you softly

there is a pool of rainbow iridescent-colored tears,
each one a diamond. each one shines,
the glittering sheen of a forgotten dream,
the forbidden taste of something sweet,
the dark made real. perhaps made wholesome.
to walk inside and understand one’s soul is so bound up with something that
you can’t stop.

first desire. then the fall. then explanation, and the pretense
that this fall is permitted. that all is well. we push from our minds
what we can’t fathom. we make disappear
the pretends that cannot be. we are magicians, waving wands,
creating illusions, dismissing images, pretending that there is a way that
it will still work.

here we see dreams. threads of thought intertwine, and we remember
that moment where our hearts stopped. where we were found, caught,
the taste of the candy still on our tongue. and for that one moment, for a taste
of something we could not forego, we were ruined. we watched our lives
disappear, trickling under the door, forming a puddle of black silk,
cut to a jerkin. cut to a shirt, and we stand now, with a foil
and debate whether there is a reason to remain.

was it worth it? why could we not forego a treat
for what was far more meaningful, our whole life? where is our courage? where my strength?
is it all confounded? have I forgotten it, in my quest
to dance onward, and explore, and pretend somehow that all is inviolate,
all is quiet. all is forgotten, all is forgiven. so I decide. but my heart says differently,
beating an anxious tattoo within my chest.
I taste my fear,
so real, it is like blood.

fear on my lips, not for myself; for me, perhaps shame
would suffice. but fear for what I caused. so much destruction, to steal a taste
of something forbidden. was it worth it? how can I face
the mirror in the morning, when all I see is black silk,
black silk, flowing, the life cut short, the life I cut,
as surely as though I had stabbed, with a knife made of satin,
a knife so soft, it was barely there. a nonexistent knife.
the subtle knife, which cuts because it dreams;
it dreams into reality what cannot be.

I wake to the mirror. I wake to look;
black silk colors my vision. melted to the floor,
liquid silk, a life. a life I took.
selfishly, I grasped at what I could not have;
could it be that I would betray the one for whom
I would give anything? well then, would I? I could not give
even this; perhaps I lie so that
I can even wake
in the morning.