jezebel...

i voided the room…
blank photos barren of face or form;
white-draped paintings complementing colorless walls
stripped bare of essence, of expectation…
emptied of emotion
within echoing silence…no music, no voices, no weeping…
a clock’s faint ticking notes the passing…

surfaces are clean, cleared of clutter and concern…
sterile, starched and solitary,
lying face down with hands lashed to Birdseye posts…
no touching allowed.
no sighs, no abject and self-effacing apologies…
no humiliation…
no pleas for love…
negation – nothing – nullified…

sinking into soft denial and denigration,
where betrayal flutters eyelids and postures
with paralyzing pain and soul-wrenching sarcasm…
she laughs at me
hands on her hips, slapping her knee...
“fool,” she scoffs, “you deserve this, again…”

“he loved me,” i whisper…
”he said he would love me forever.”
“which meant what?” she demands…”six weeks?
look at you now…you are lacerated, ground glass.”
“but he promised!” i scream…
“they all do,” she sighs…”when will you learn?
they cannot love you…”
she taps her forehead meaningfully,
gesturing for me to follow her

now sliding into silky soft recesses where
she leads me; i follow a pattern of concentric circles
ever tighter – growing smaller and smaller
until like the pain of memory and loss,
i slip away…
forlorn and forgotten

she will never forgive my love;
she never has…

jezebel…
prism gates...
ja allen