Status: fractured.
Sternum
bone lullaby
He had never seen anything quite like her.
She was a walking structure of calcium, cloaked by a thin veil of skin and veins and arteries. Her thin lips were pale and brittle, melting like candle wax whenever speaking. But she never spoke with life. Not even her glassy orbs of apathy spoke of life. She wore black garments and fine tresses of hair looked fragile and hollow, like dead orchids on a sycamore tree. She was as dead as death could be, yet as beautiful as beauty could aspire to be.
Instead, he was just another bramble at the stem of her ankles, alabaster silk and rooting veins smooth beneath his desperate clutch. Every breath was a small flurry of poetry and leaves, the delicate hymn escaping papyrus lips more beautiful than the Egyptian sunset; more striking than the Venus goddess at the feet of the Greeks. She could charm angels and demons alike, the labyrinth of life written on her gaunt wrists - blue and green never looking so salient on skin.
Yet, her orbs of lethargy never sang like her bones, just like her lungs never breathed like her ribcage. She was rooted to skin and arteries and veins. Victim to the snare called flesh, and witness to the ploy called life. All she ever did was saunter through the hoax and charm the angels, the demons, the vixens and the lost. Slither through reality and crown herself as queen of the bizarre, the ruler of the dreamlike and the freak of the ordinary.
But even then, those marbles that resided within her orbital cavities never breathed. Never lived. Never sang. As she was already dead. And that was the true essence of her beauty. The slight elevation of her sternum, the gentle flexing of her vertebra, and the graceful gliding of her phalanges. All subtle indications of life. Of mortality.
And, yet, even then, he never saw her as one. He saw her as a hidden divinity within the realm of reality, her thin hair and frail lips as tangible as her ribs; each bone crooning a story under his fingertips. Each gust of breath muted by the songs of her bones, every stroke of curiosity entwining him closer to her anatomy, every kiss melting both mouths into one ocean of passion and death. His tongue sung lullabies of passion, while her lips whispered hushed promises of departure. And whenever that happened, he’d envelop her with muscle and skin, keeping together her delicate skeleton under his solid frame.
She had to fade. She had to become a blur of life and diminish into the realm she came from. She had to die. She had whispered to him as much. But no matter how she tried to explain, how she ran the tips of her distal phalanx over his frank skull, he could not understand. He could not let go. And as the days rushed by, he witnessed the metamorphosis of her true self. And by then, they would huddle together under the stained duvet and clutch each other with desperation. Brown and pastel white entwined as one for one last breath.
He’d spend hours tracing each bone, each vein, each scar. He designated each vertebra with a tearful name, and every rib with a mournful moniker. He had wept on her skeletal hand, tenderly kissing the web of veins on her wrist, devastatingly loving her until he couldn’t hear her hushed promises.
Until her eyes didn’t try to sing anymore.
She was a walking structure of calcium, cloaked by a thin veil of skin and veins and arteries. Her thin lips were pale and brittle, melting like candle wax whenever speaking. But she never spoke with life. Not even her glassy orbs of apathy spoke of life. She wore black garments and fine tresses of hair looked fragile and hollow, like dead orchids on a sycamore tree. She was as dead as death could be, yet as beautiful as beauty could aspire to be.
Instead, he was just another bramble at the stem of her ankles, alabaster silk and rooting veins smooth beneath his desperate clutch. Every breath was a small flurry of poetry and leaves, the delicate hymn escaping papyrus lips more beautiful than the Egyptian sunset; more striking than the Venus goddess at the feet of the Greeks. She could charm angels and demons alike, the labyrinth of life written on her gaunt wrists - blue and green never looking so salient on skin.
Yet, her orbs of lethargy never sang like her bones, just like her lungs never breathed like her ribcage. She was rooted to skin and arteries and veins. Victim to the snare called flesh, and witness to the ploy called life. All she ever did was saunter through the hoax and charm the angels, the demons, the vixens and the lost. Slither through reality and crown herself as queen of the bizarre, the ruler of the dreamlike and the freak of the ordinary.
But even then, those marbles that resided within her orbital cavities never breathed. Never lived. Never sang. As she was already dead. And that was the true essence of her beauty. The slight elevation of her sternum, the gentle flexing of her vertebra, and the graceful gliding of her phalanges. All subtle indications of life. Of mortality.
And, yet, even then, he never saw her as one. He saw her as a hidden divinity within the realm of reality, her thin hair and frail lips as tangible as her ribs; each bone crooning a story under his fingertips. Each gust of breath muted by the songs of her bones, every stroke of curiosity entwining him closer to her anatomy, every kiss melting both mouths into one ocean of passion and death. His tongue sung lullabies of passion, while her lips whispered hushed promises of departure. And whenever that happened, he’d envelop her with muscle and skin, keeping together her delicate skeleton under his solid frame.
She had to fade. She had to become a blur of life and diminish into the realm she came from. She had to die. She had whispered to him as much. But no matter how she tried to explain, how she ran the tips of her distal phalanx over his frank skull, he could not understand. He could not let go. And as the days rushed by, he witnessed the metamorphosis of her true self. And by then, they would huddle together under the stained duvet and clutch each other with desperation. Brown and pastel white entwined as one for one last breath.
He’d spend hours tracing each bone, each vein, each scar. He designated each vertebra with a tearful name, and every rib with a mournful moniker. He had wept on her skeletal hand, tenderly kissing the web of veins on her wrist, devastatingly loving her until he couldn’t hear her hushed promises.
Until her eyes didn’t try to sing anymore.