Author S. K. Nicholas

Riddle me this, with larks rising and eyelids carved with symbols. In ivory tusk, she stalks the ground and spreads herself like a ballerina. In the second sun of Autumn, all divided hearts are replaced with crescent moons. She’s floating over snow, and suspended from beams of light. Her lips warm like honey, a hundred ghosts yearn for her cosmic body. They dance in unison as neon clouds gravitate to her hips. In a sequence involving absence, she’s replaced with darkened glass. The circular notion of what lies beneath, of what souls are made of. Containing roses and dust, the hinges have been torn clean off. Birdcages swinging from trees. Curvatures of sleepless spines. Dreamless nights waiting for the moment when all histories will ignite. The gentle humming of lethargy tightened with anxiety as the rope snaps his neck. Her wrists bound by chains of childhood hallucinations, with falling rocks and caverns of shattered skulls. The danger she swallows. Self-pity and reflection, bending to the hands that wrap around her legs. Wished on prophecy, written on her flesh with disappearing ink. The death of hangovers. Existence unravelling on Sunday mornings. Dying beneath the sun, and gasping for air with lungs on fire. Puking in the gutter, and stumbling with veins full of chemicals. The emptiness of years, of skin infections and missing fragments of bone. Clutch her neck and bite her tongue; rub your cock against her belly, and wait for the eye in her navel to open. Clicking limbs, all pornographic and unfaithful. Shimmering lies against the arches of her thighs. Red like nightmares. Tombstones of lust. Teeth white like sugar, so sweet as they chew you up. The way she dissolves. The sacred particles of yesterday, seeping into her blood. Mirrored, our fates are entwined, like vines wrapped around a tree. There’s no escaping this. It’s a dream upon waking. The hieroglyphics of her ego just too difficult to grasp. They remain opaque. Separated from reality. Like fantasies and Eskimo kisses, dripping onto fresh linen. The ritual act, of two souls, trapped in tired flesh. Beyond the realms of what we know, there is another place waiting for us. Without darkness, the room spins in the back of our throats. Words spilling out, I lick her wounds and pluck feathers that help us to fly. To some place where we can live as one, where the secrets of her tomb will reveal themselves at last.