The Box at Her Feet

"SHAME ON YOU!" Appliqued wall art by Laura Chowanski of Xcentric Designs

THE BOX AT HER FEET

Carries her heart in a cardboard box.The shell of a woman broken and lost:

Pulsing with life, the jewel sits inside,

Trading her love and her life for her pride.

A warrior once tough, sturdy and strong,

Turned to ashes when the love of her life

Had since gone.

Heartbroken and sorry for the seeds she had sown

Sobbing for treasures,

She no longer owns.

In the frozen moonlight she stands, wounded and pleading,

Giving anything for a new life worth the leading.

She laid her broken dreams at the souls of her feet,

A pain rose in her gut with every heartbeat.

Protecting the most valuable piece of her soul,

Mourning her life’s blood

Alone in the cold.

Through the forest he came on that dark, winter’s night,

Demanding, “Trade your humanity for my life.”

Their eyes met and held in a smoldering stare,

It was not for her, for whom he would care.

The darkness was charming, but stealing her will,

Gifts she possessed,

 He would take or would kill.

He would not be denied; it showed on his face,

His fangs were her wounds she needed to embrace.

With hope all but gone: her tears to be damned,

The undead snatched her heart and took her life,

 - Under his command.

Though she was human, she survived the nightmare,

She would gain strength and courage

Or drown in despair?

Was it fate that brought a shattered life and the life-less to meet?

Or the screams emanating from the box at her feet.

Laura Chowanski   2/14/11

COME TO ME...

Dwell upon the fickle whims of lust or the glorious agonizing longing that almost threatens your sanity.

Heart beating wildly gasping for our last breathes in our hour of judgment

White noise vibrating through damp flesh

A stark tepid air surrounds.

Embraces.

Poof 

…it’s gone.

Stroll along these dilapidated streets through macabre fog

Alone in the dark.

The dank smoke of a cigarette and the fire of a dram of whiskey to chase down the hunger for that which cannot be consumed.
Come to me......

A charge in the air evokes a shiver, an exhale and a flash of heat under the sparse light of an old gas lamp. Come to me...... 

The immediate desire is palpable, floating out of the fog 

with the courage of many men gently bestowing upon bare skin a soft caress. Come to me......

To run would set off a thrill that would outlast the hunt

But the body is motionless unable to move one throbbing muscle as

The eyes are blinded to what your soul is willing to give up.

Bargain for. Come to me......

A single shot rips through the belly ending on an agonizing gasp,

A single tear. Come to me..... 

Feverish glazed eyes stumble through the fading delusion

Hand outstretched begging to stay.

Poof

…The memory is a ghost

Come back to me...... 

Turn and walk away

leave behind the cold empty tomb of what could have been.

Torture, sweet torture, dangling in front of you

That which is most desired,

That cannot be,

Should not want,

But would die without.

"Who Cries for the Weeping Angel"

There’s a girl on the corner in a long black coat

That covers the hole from her gut to her throat.

I wouldn’t have noticed, I would have passes by,

But the pain that I saw she spoke with her eyes.

“They say I am forsaken, broken and lost.”

She carries her heart in a cardboard box.

Her voice was like moonlight, disturbingly sweet,

“May I ask you a question? “

My heart skipped a beat.

What seized me with pain was a ghost from the past,

I knew with whom she spoke

I would be the last.

“Someday for this kindness a debt will be paid”,

Her icy fingers on my cheek she gently did lay.

“If I ask you to choose between me and a lie,

Would you give me your heart or leave me to die?”

A tear silently fell: her voice was quite weak,

Leaving a trail of blood down her cheek.

“If I said I choose you. Would your sorrow be gone?

Would it give you the strength and courage to go on?”

“Alas, there’s no heart in my breast to keep beating,

It’s my soul the after-life needs to be greeting.”

For a girl long ago and this sorrowful wretch,

I placed her cold hand over the warmth in my chest.

At that moment, she shimmered, and drifted away,

Rest in peace for a beauty that died on this day

The eerie night whispers: the wind sings a son

You have now been forgiven

 by the one you had wronged.

Who weeps for me, the girl with no heart?

Will you dance in the darkness or tear me apart?

Promise me love and tell me you care,

Rescue me from my heart-wrenching nightmare.

Who weeps for an angel that fell far from grace?

Will you give me a kiss?

Wipe the blood from my face?

Who lays their battered hand on her cold carved stone?

Resting warm flesh above her sweet bones.

Who cries for the wretched finally at peace?

Who gave a damn

when her breath

Finally did cease?

He once said he loved her: once gave her his heart.

Does he regret her madness in which he had part?

Who cries for the weeping Angel?

Buried,

             Dead,

 and

                                                                                                                     Gone.

She’ll whisper in your ear if you sing her a song.

Laura Chowanski   1/26/2011