Carmilla

She turned away from me into the twilight – her muslin

so light a blue it faded into the hollow of her throat.

The flutter of her pulse a human’s brilliance.

The iron of her will a woman’s brilliance.

She was the crumb – the sparrow – and the hawk.

Who tempted and who turned?

The snake’s a man’s myth anyways.

What should I forbid her of myself –

my power, my mischief, and my weakness,

my nights of honey, my days of endless night.

How long were hers? – a fistful of rosewater,

cardamom & lime, fruit touching the very

velvet of its limits.

We ruined one another splendidly.

The little channels of blood at her wrist tasted

like musk & mint & hunger itself again.

We fed each other what we could. Cruelty

& honey. Her breath against my mouth.

So if I must taste of death again, well –

The dirt was cold without her.

The twilight a taste of bitterness.

They do not see I have no more

to fear. When she turned towards me

& offered me her wrist – I tasted what I could

of her life, of my life, for a time. A time.

And a time is all that any of us get.