Colonel Mathura beckons me forward, but the balcony is a maw with a balustrade of marble teeth. The crowd devours me with their cheers. I shuffle forward to be consumed by their support. The midday ... [+]
I would live in perpetual darkness
Knowing you by touch alone—
A relief of scales, a battle-scarred carapace
Wrapped around your fiery bones.
The mist would cling to us
Like a skin after I sloughed mine off.
In relentless fog, I would teach myself rebirth
Away from curious eyes.
You would know me by touch alone—
Raw skin, sticky ectoplasm
As I learned to reconstruct myself
In the cradleland of blind prophets,
Penumbral dreamtides,
And abyssal monsters
Of which I would love you most.
Knowing you by touch alone—
A relief of scales, a battle-scarred carapace
Wrapped around your fiery bones.
The mist would cling to us
Like a skin after I sloughed mine off.
In relentless fog, I would teach myself rebirth
Away from curious eyes.
You would know me by touch alone—
Raw skin, sticky ectoplasm
As I learned to reconstruct myself
In the cradleland of blind prophets,
Penumbral dreamtides,
And abyssal monsters
Of which I would love you most.