Ekphrastic

Ekphrastic:

The lovers stood embraced; two beings

untethered to all but themselves. 

Ignorant–ignorant to all that could be hers.

All that is his.

Peace prolonged by ignorance’s veil, but

what good is peace

if it’s only a shroud for control?

The vastness of the parlous, unknown blue 

overshadows her need to escape the vice-grip of his shadows.

How could she leave him 

when his authority is all she has known?

How could she leave him

when the familiarity of their biting love

is better than what she could suffer drowning in the blue?

Is it better? Is her love enough?

Light drains from her and funnels to him.

Through a vampire’s kiss,

her soul’s marrow is sucked dry;

nothing left but a skeleton of dry bones to remind her,

despite all she’s done,

her efforts have made her nothing but death’s dearest. 

The years she’s devoted to keeping him alive

rendered her a corpse. 

A life for a life.

He remains blind–blind to her life unlived.

The places she could have gone, the loves she could have had,

the stories that could have been her own. 

His life is all that matters, anyway. 

What good is a kept woman if not to be a man’s seraph?