Work Text:
this is not a tragedy.
the floor is not slippery with her mistake
nor are the splinters scattered beneath the table legs remnants
of the ladder
the counter is not splattered with the colour of tangle, underwater,
only fingerprints that didn’t make it to her scales
across her skin, riddled with goosebumps
she dropped into the glass contraption
with the force of claws pulling at her shirt
the press of their mouths lasting fatally, hopeful
but then bubbles pop and a slit appears
symmetrical, where her shoulders were, and it breathes,
gapes and yawns like an ancient unfurling
she used the blade, the fear and pain reserved for its surprised observer
clothes spotless, speckled only with the glint of her eye
the poison sapped away by a vampire with lips for canines
just as hungry
gills on girls with secrets, a culmination
of a ballroom romance, cultured in a darkroom:
mysterious, academic, under dim lighting and wisps of gilded thread
lady justice ties her apron
and starched blindfold
for she has never sliced so smoothly, made such a perfect cut
as when she scored her Lover open
watched her fingers dance across the carmine and chartreuse
like droplets in a bottle well-used
she’d looked perfect de-veined
but the deboning made her ugly
shoulders bandaged, she seeks to remember
jaw moving with a need to speak
like a nervous tic, a chef’s habit hidden
it is not what it looks like.