In Communion with Calliope is a fortnightly column by Ivana Marija Devčić.
To me,
his words are honey:
viscous on my tongue,
seeping sweet silence,
as though my throat was stung.
He is the nocturnal sea –
Delivering peace,
and ending it,
with the same cold ease.
I would forgo all, still,
to spend even half a year
wrapped in his arms.
But it is always my neck,
and never my waist
that is held;
always my soul strangled
in a tourniquet,
and never his.
Tonight,
I walk alone to the altar.
I place my bouquet on the hearth.
I lay down on the bitter slab.
I pull my brain through my mouth,
and I wrap myself, gently,
in bandages that bind me.
Death seeks me like a hound,
salivating over the taste of
my bloody footsteps that
trail between dormant
headstones and mausoleums.
Bristling, he finds me waiting
with
an iron weight in my pocket:
his heart, my greatest burden.
“I am cold,” I say,
by way of greeting.
Reflected in his black eyes
– those onyx mirrors –
I see the lick of flame dancing
when I set his heart ablaze.
He does not flinch
until Rubies and Garnets
and Sapphires spill out
from the fire in my chest
like wine.