those who eat their food may never escape

Tangles of black hair lift with a breeze that braids the smell of honeysuckle and sea shells. 

Figures with veins that glow blue beneath skin made of moonlight dart between the fingers of the forest and the trees watch them with faces shown by shadow.

Their roots curl and coil like toes beneath the ground, branches straining to brush passing arms, seeking the sun stored in golden brushed skin.

Colors shimmer and fade on the frays of vision.

Eyes flash from seaweed green to silver that draws the stars, pupils: deep puddles of oil glistening with rainbows.

Drops of toxic golden dew glisten on lips splotched with the stains of berry blood.

Girls with gossamer hair and dirty nails and moss behind their ears stretch their limbs and bare their teeth when they slink past.

Green blooded creatures with too many teeth c**k their heads, sliding yellowed talons down the bones in your legs and in the morning you'll wonder where the scratches came from.

Limber boys with flower-stem bodies tap their knuckles on their rib cages and stare with animal eyes that glow in the dark.

A pool of water ripples as thin fingers reach out to brush the cool night air.

Kelpies with algae for hair and gills in the hollows of their cheeks slither from the mud of the deep.

Characters whose features shift, as if from behind a warped and clouded glass, lead those lovely enough to be stolen.

Beneath their feet the grass shoots up, lush and green, then fades to silver, glittering with the memory of life and magic.

Drugged with fragrances and flutes, droopy eyed mortals, grasp never empty goblets in their hands to twirl and stumble from one pair of enticing arms to another.

Bare chested and bronze, fawns shuffle their hooves in the dirt, horns taking root in their brow and sprouting from their skulls, twisted and curved.

Wings brush your shoulder leaving a trail of glitter and the smell of butterflies on your skin.

She parts lips of faded blue and flicks a forked tongue at your ear and you smell the dirt of your grave but you don't see her.

 

Copyright 2011 - Elysia Starr " All Rights Reserved

Reviews

[Naomi Jacobson]

I read it like a slam-poem. I lalalove it! me gusta ze imagery.

Green blooded creatures with too many teeth c**k their heads, sliding yellowed talons down the bones in your legs and in the morning you'll wonder where the scratches came from.

^ I feel it