The fire raged for forty days and in forty ways

sparks burned stars on virgin skin.

Beaming heat on nameless faces,

engaged in activities better left unsaid.

Temporary joys felt under shameful satin sheets

Remnants of cigarette smoke linger,

yellow fog lives on the nameless window-panes.

Invisible eyes don’t recognize themselves in a mirror,

with a stranger’s glance staring back.

She believed in new life, but salvation has a price.

She shakes the sky a million times, a cloud labeled hopeless descends.

Hopeless as a Middle-Eastern woman before she is stoned,

a silent movie created to be seen and not heard.

Hopeless as an HIV infected baby,

sentenced to 1,000 winters of deterioration.

Hopeless as a cauldron of broken promises, hovering like death

a subconscious tattooed with past mistakes.

Buried in the bowels of discarded memories,

the bitter after taste of bile remains.

Layers of dust erode emaciated thoughts, covered in an avalanche of regret.

Engulfed in a suffocating silence, a tongue less beast awaits.

Lost in vanilla fields of passion the pen embraces paper,

voices born on the pages of withered skin.

On a weathered spine a cool shudder trickles,

a lost raindrop trying to find its way home.

An empty house with lifeless windows,

a mere shell of what used to be.

 

 

This poem was reviewed and edited by Michael Jordan (not his real name but he prefers to remain somewhat anonymous)