ELIXIR

I smelled your perfume 
as you twisted the garrote.
The wire was sharp where 
your lips were soft, 
your murmured spell sealed
by my scrambling hands, 
my thrashing feet.  

You tried to buy magic 
with my death. And so, 
my marrow seeps into 
the petals of your ambition, 
dark veins of demon’s tongue 
snaking through my ribcage.

And even now, a corpse, 
rotting in the shell of 
a ruined mausoleum, 
flesh dripping from wet bones, 
my voice the purr of blowflies,
I quiver at the brush 
of your fingertips.

But the goddess spurned you,
and in the crash of storms, 
the hollow breath of starlight,
I dance with the immortal instead. 

And you, in the gloom, 
tend the poisons 
that grow from my body.