her love came off of her sweet full lips like calligraphy dancing across the air

the gentle turns of phrase danced on eddies in the air, spinning and floating like the most joyous sound

her sorrow ran from her mouth in halting gasps, like the rivulets of mascara down her pale cheeks

heavy words of morose shame and sorrow, like the images of rivers flowing underwater of the water but seperate

her anger spat like venom from her crooked fangs, her lips thinned and acidic sprays arced

like a chemical sprayer, she could not form words only primal expressions of hatred and bile that begged for release

learning to dodge, to dip, to jump, to perform a ballet in one simple hope to remain just ahead of the volatile shifting, to read the weather patterns on her beautiful face, to sense the calm before the storm that was her and ride the currents to safety

no lighthouse to guide you away from jagged rocks and coral beds of emotional sinking

i learned to fear the calligraphy more than the venom, the acid burn more than the healing loops and swirls

she was magnetic, both drawing you in and repulsing you with every inhale, with every exhalation

i often wondered if she knew her own power or if she was a slave to it just like me but i could never get the nerve to ask her

fearful that she was as fearful as i was fearful of her as she was fearful of what she could do with my fearful heart in her fearful hands

an endless spiral of fear, of shameful uncertainty, of desperate longing, of need and hunger and hard slaps on the face and hands like claws down my back, not involuntary but wanting to draw blood, her marking me as hers, the mark of the beast, marking the beast, a game she liked to play

and it has been so long now that i don’t remember if she was ever real or just a demon i conjured from thin air in loneliness and pentagram sketches, of candles and bells and silver daggers in the moonlight

i don’t know if i made her up and then suffered for having lost her, or if she made me up and inflicted torture with the trained hand of practiced movements and soft skin

but for over a year i have written to her and not once gotten an answer just returned letters that have clearly been steamed open and carefully resealed with faint lipstick kisses and bold red stamps that say return to sender in what could be blood

and still i flinch when i see calligraphy, an automatic reflex triggered by beauty

and in my mind i see her smiling at me before she grabs me and pulls me in closer and closer until where she begins and i end is a technicolor blur of pleasure and pain

and i want each in equal amounts

she never wore mascara but when she cried black streaks fell from her eyes

she never wore lipstick but when she kissed my neck her lips were imprinted on my skin

she was the devil, she was the angel, she was the sinner and she walked like a saint floating above the ground mere mortals were forced to stand upon

and i followed her like a puppy on bloody knees, refusing to stand in the presence of horrific beauty, unnatural purity, her divine grace weighed heavy on my soul and it wasn’t until she left that i could breathe a sigh of relief that felt like broken glass being sucked into my lungs

it wasn’t until she left that i saw the thing she had turned me into

it wasn’t until she left

i wasn’t

and in the wake of her destructive passion, her passionate disinterest, her cold flame and her fiery frozen absence

in the void she left, so large for one so small, a gaping emptiness where calligraphy once danced that i wondered if she had ever been there at all

if she had ever been there at all

if she had ever been