Long Face

Written after a break up

As I held your long face
I feared your brittle bones would snap
like the vine in a hurricane
like a flash of the eyes against my-

So I tossed our love down the stairs
and you turned in a system of blind machinery
cold hands, cold mind, cold heart.
Cold sweat, huddled against the relentless gale

The flowers come sailing down
over our heads and empty hearts.
And I took your long face in my hands
and missed the frost setting in your eyes

I recoil from your thick limbs,
clip my wings and lift my head
up to the harsh sun in defiance,
root myself in the soil, twining 'round my feet.

Silence thickens around us:
a molten heat boiling underneath
our freezing stretched skin
and the windows shake in our storm

The moment I opened my eyes I trembled
and I saw you, the withered shell of a person:
frightful and ugly, not a hint of the flowers upon your brow.
The breath rattled in my chest.

My hands froze, ice trailing
a cold, cold path up my arms, into my hair
throwing shards into my bones
I released your precious long face

Thorns sprouted from my toes, up to my lips
I discarded my wings and climbed,
instead, to the top of the stairs
looking where our love had dissolved into the floor.

Author's Note

Sort of all over the place, but that's how my mind was at the time, I believe.

Reviews

[donella75]

I don't know if my review counts for anything but the word "cold" is repetitive. Try using another word. But it is very promising.