Reams of Red and Royal

Curtains of fire conceal her eyes,
Her shape consumed in drapes;
Cloaked with night, or something like,
The feel beyond her fingers.
Smoke is smeared across her arms,
Her heart all wrapped in ribbons;
It beats in tune with rising heat,
And sets her all ablaze.

She whirls and twirls and dances light,
She holds the world and steals a bite,
She shuns a scepter, runs from scythes,
And yearns to feel, and be alive...

A sapphire swing-set is all she's known,
A pendulum keeping time.
Kick hard enough, faster,
Swing round to the start.
Vertigo verges on rending her skull,
As she halts herself upside-down...

She's scared of the sky,
And the limits it poses;
Grown used to the ground,
An expansive decline.
Poised there, pausing,
She hangs in the heavens;
As gravity grabs her,
The circle is closed.

With a flowery flutter,
She forgets who she is.

In a meadow made of mirror glass,
There are red and royal roses.
They sprout from cracks, nocturnal blooms
That wither with every dawn.
Yet a fraction, a fragment,
Remains to remind her;
Forget-me-nots following
The roses removed.

Are violets really blue?

The flames are a flurry,
Scalding and scattered,
Scarlet and lilac alike;
They writhe and recoil,
Yet return all the same,
Twining in spite of their thorns.

The stage is set as sunset comes,
As the curtains part once more;
The child's eyes are all alight
With reams of red and royal.