Current mood:	ditzy
Entry tags:	poems

old poems.
Feel free to ignore this post. It's for a poll I have up on deviantART (here). I didn't want to submit two new deviations (yet).



I killed my shadow.
(revised)

I killed my shadow.

He came lurking,
like he did -
always staining
my sad footsteps,

silhouetted
knife in one hand.
He had meant
that blade for me.

He was silent -
that I taught him.
But I killed him
as I died.

Now my footsteps
no one follows.
My dark history
no one echoes.

My depression
no one masters.
My ghostly chorus
no one stains.

I can't live
in silent shadows.
They all laugh
around me now.

They all shake
those curs-ed tresses,
marking me with
their duresses,

Do you see
your error now?
Do you see
the mirror bleed?

Blood unfettered
by my victim
blackens my sweet
misery.

I am silenced
in my darkness,
in my shadow's
victory.





These are her ashes.

These are her ashes. Listen well,
they speak of an unspoken hell,

of fire and hate and circumstance,
and destiny's cruel happenstance,

and since you're here, they'll let you know,
the one we were so long ago

deserved a death not quite as this,
although it was her lover's kiss

that brought her to this shallow grave.
Listen, that our whispers save

you from a fate as grim as this --
this death unbridled from a kiss.

We were, we were, so long before,
a woman's touch, a scent adored

by prince and pauper, lord and lad,
such innocence and life we had,

They'll say. And once, we held the heart
of one sweet sire, a patriarch

untouched by worldly sins and lies.
It was his seed we bore inside,

we nourished, grew until it waked,
that graceful gift and twist of fate

embodied in a baby's cry.

[end part one.]



It wasn't her, their whispers laugh.
The child alone provoked no wrath,

no qualms, no tension in that smile,
no shadow from the man's denial

of contribution. Here we stood,
our child stripped of fatherhood

by some hand heavier than Fate.
We bore the sin without a mate,

and from the devil's own, we found
our peace upon this barren ground.

You see, they'll say, a chosen few
can understand what we went through,

or fathom what possession came
because of one without a name.

See humans, they can whisper too.
They talk about what others do,

about the babies lost that year,
the love that died, their deathly fear,

and somewhere in that mess of sighs,
they'll find no answer, make up lies

that make more sense than Fate herself.
They blame each one till no one's left,

and then, yes, they remember her;
that one unfortunate left to birth

and raise alone a bastard child,
a spell, they'd whisper while they smiled,

that gave her seed without a seed,
and took from them what mothers need

to keep her own.

[end part two]



We fought them well with what we could,
a mother's love unfathomed would

predict the fate of one so young,
protect her from the place we hung.

But still, they sigh, you can't pretend
to know this mortal's bitter end

until the seed within your hand
becomes to you a right to stand

and bear the fate they judged for it.
What grisly things within that pit

of prison they uncaring threw
without a hope of fate anew

this girl, within these rusted gates.

The child, without father found,
was stripped of mother, beat and bound;

behind the bars we watched their fear
deprive our life's one cause for tears

and dying as we did that day,
we turned our eyes once more away

from their accusing gaze.

[end part three]


What happened, you may ask us now?
What happens when a mother's brow

no longer carries pleasure, pain or
anything with such a name as

they had taken. There she tried
to wet once more her weary eyes,

but dead to torture, dead to men –
she'd lost her life because of them –

she sat, alone and waiting till
her fate they could decide.

These curators debated well
into the night about her hell,

the torment justified by fear,
the curses lifted in the year

they'd robbed the mateless bride.

Into the night, they comforted
their own sweet sins, untormented

by life's sweet cradle sleeping in
their midst. They waited, barren

but for fruit unfettered, borrowed
from the blood of someone's sorrow

they denied.

And when the morning finally came,
they suffered her no quick defame,

no painless death, no happy fate,
but banished her from city gate

friendless, and without her child,
this woman weak and nearly wild

with hatred from their pious stance,
their judgment left her to her chance

alone.

[end part four]



It wasn't these unholy men
that brought us to our second end,

though well they aided our sad state,
and taught us well enough to hate

as they so often do. She cried
as city gates she left behind,

a place she'd never welcome been,
but still, to lose a house or land

is different from the bond they broke
without a right; they only stoke

the anger of a former friend,
an innocent whose only sin

was love unjustified.

The world was hardly kinder to
this soul once lost, and once reduced

to pauper. Here she found a home
in alleys, streets and e'en as some

ill-famed amusement. Shelter, food,
she wandered till she found a good

supply, and then she'd drain it dry,
move on, her soul too dead to cry

until the day she found her end --
here where you stand, our mortal friend.

And since you've listened to the tale
thus far, we'll any pity spare

you, by this simple lullaby:
we are at peace, we cannot cry.

She brought her life to its own end,
a quicker death no human can

desire. Here we rest, a fate
where we belong, without a mate,

dead to the world, just as before,
and we shall be forever more

the ashes of another stolen life.

[end part five]