If I could draw his blood, I would. To feel the silky, smooth, warmth throbbing under my palms, to smell the life escaping that lucky man, to see the thick, dark red fluid running over the stone beneath us, to taste the metal in my mouth. Something about blood is inherently sensual – it wasn’t just chance that led the people of old to believe that the ultimate union between a man and a woman is a mixing of blood. It was insight, it was true.

If I could draw his blood, by the gods, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity for the world. I’d soak in the rare beauty of all that glorious wine-reminiscent liquid and then sit down to write. I would write songs of celebration and victory, of love and dark passion, and of forbidden things, dedicating them all, as always, to him. I will pour my heart of darkness onto the paper without fearing what I will find, because for once, the blood on the pages isn’t mine.”

As Sister Maria finishes the last sentence in her diary, she smiles. The convent bell for evening prayers screams her name and she crosses herself in due response. She fingers her wooden rosary, the one with a silver pendant attached where a cross once was. Thoughtfully, she gets up from the stone bench in the garden and slinks into the chapel unnoticed.

It was time to repent, the good old-fashioned way.

As darkness slowly falls:

the first star.

an unseen field of dandelions,

and then, a gust of wind.

His eyes. They were all she could see. They were all that she needed ever since she fell in love with him four years ago. Her face flushed deep red as he caught her admiring gaze. Their eyes locked – as they had so many times before today. Like always, she smiled and didn’t look away.

He smiled back at that pretty girl in the white dress, the girl with the sad eyes who had fallen in love with him four years ago. As they held each other’s gaze, their eyes spoke for them, just as always – how much she loved him, how she always would, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, how he would never lose that spark in his eyes when he looked at her, how he would always make her heart skip a beat.

Suddenly, the guests stood up, the priest smiled benevolently and the band began to play the wedding march. Their gaze broke as he turned away from her to look towards the church door.

His beautiful bride was walking down the aisle to claim him.

through my Achilles’ heel,

                                (ouch!)

I look down in surprised pain

I gasp – involuntarily kneel.

                                (Ouch!)

That chubby little bastard

knew my heart was stone,

So cupid shot the bloody arrow

through living flesh and bone.

A craving for a strawberry sorbet

-          icy pink, sour-sweet and served in a tall slim glass

at a sweaty, sticky summer soiree,

my throat screaming to be appeased

-          right now!

my tongue already tasting the berry blue,

-          no pink!

my eyes protest as I imagine it pressed to my lips.

I’m waiting!

.

.

Seeing you in my dreams is hardly as good as seeing, tasting and touching

you :

my strawberry seal

my yellow sequined dream

my muse, inspiration, Achilles’ heel.

-   a trust in You, a love for Your plans    -

I ran away from the world.

He chased me with a vengeance

but still I ran, You leading me

-    leading me to the edge of a cliff  -

as I looked down

I heard Your test in the sound of the waves

crashing against the cruel cold rocks.

And so I jumped.

that You can do what You say You can.

You took away that persistent Loneliness

with a single simple thought:

How can you be lonely my darling,

when the One you’re alone with

is madly in love with you?

He hung on the tree

Sin personified

now dying for me.

my heart is all He asks

not even in return

dare I say No

to this dark-eyed  One?

you smell bitter, sweet

like the old dried blood on my skirts

like the woman upstairs who stopped bathing

after her lover left her for the maid

like me, back in the days when I pretended

not to care when you treated me

with indifference.

you smell like regret and repentance

and even though I still want you

want your hot breath against my neck

your cold heart beating violently against my chest

I refuse to let love’s ink smudge my verses.

For erasing them will erase the need for

you:

inspiration, muse, Achilles’ heel.