Opal Equinox

Purple smoke & pearlescent intentions,
I never wanted to leave you shivering in the dirt,
my timepiece white rabbit cracked.

Spider silk & sleeping potions
I always meant to keep to myself,
satchel cinched with pastel ribbon.

Scarlet weeds & clove cigarettes,
we almost tried to extinguish the flame
of every yesterday and overcast tomorrow.

Mistakes made late into the season
often charge, charred, into overtime,
leaving a wake of crow & flint.

Promises kept early in the day
rarely fall flat as autumn leaves,
picked up by investigators & instigators.

Arson never looked so pretty,
sparks starting from your soft palm,
heat storm swirling & calm as hurricane eyes.

Tinderbox holes stuffed with wheat & timothy hay,
he was a top-hatted scarecrow
who herded the murder he deserved.

Predatory Paradox

Purple suds start from her mouth
and slip into my bubbling cocktail,
giving it a mystical, absinthe aura.
I pretend the cost is inconsequential
because I’ve been abstaining too long
from long stem romances and, well, long stems,
the silk-tip, acrylic language of fingertips,
the pouty eyes and dewy lips
of another tipsy girl
like me.

I can hardly discern which shadow is mine,
my thoughts caught in caterpillar loops,
blue as the moon, then fuzzy as mold.
“Tell me where you live,” she slurs
like a self-hate crime, a curse.

I’m spellbound but unsure who’s the caster.
I offered shitty poetry and crushed pills,
but she wound up stealing both my lines.
She fingered a party favor down my throat,
sprinkled her negs with shiny compliments.

Did she know when she draped her nape in Punch Paradise
or when she slipped into an off-the-shoulder shift
that I was the mark, her sheepish she-wolf
worth more than a week’s wool in bounty?
Did she know that I know better?