Center Stage

A dark empty room...
The heavy, brass doors open with ease.
Dim lights illuminate the plush velvet cushions as dust glistens in the stale air.
Here they come.
Trampling, stomping, crushing...
Pushing through for the closest seat.

It starts:

It is forming...
A hard...choking...clogging...chilling lump.
Heavy.
And growing inside my throat.
It sits to suffocate...
And I drown my beauty in oceans of lonliness.

GASP!

Gasp for air- and life!

I...
can't...
breathe!

The air thickens.
It becomes as solid as your stone heart.
Nothing was left inside of me.
I have become a porcelain shell
Where emotion decomposes inside.

YOU DID THIS!

YOU pushed and pronged your cold, merciless fingers into the burning hot flesh of my soft gentle bosom.
And you grasped me entirely.
I poured into you as you looked away,
Snearing at my ease of coming to you.
Obeying you.
Little did I know...
You lied.
You touched skin of leather as to my silk,
You protruded filth admist confusion
And you became filled with deceit and despair.
You poisoned and destroyed the purest part of my innocense.
You became anxious.
Impatient with the anticipation of fueling your desire with another flame and fire.
You wrenched and wrought the living breath from my very being.
Mutilating and tearing with pleasure.
Separating and ripping the flesh of my soul with all your might.

...Then you left.

Hollow footsteps disappear into the darkness that consumes me.

I am left there...
...Alone...
...I lie...
Shivering... limp... weak.
I scream when it comes flooding from my core.
Blood surges and errodes through my raw, gaping wound.
I become emersed in a scarlet sea.

Parched.

The crimson tapered tassels of the lush, velvet curtain lofted high above the stage...
I am caught in a white-hot spotlight blinding with lies.

The audience ovated and screamed their appraise!

I weep ever so softly until the last droplet of a crushed dream fell from the empty cavern which once held my heart.
Forgotten.
Forever.

A hush of silence fell heavy upon their glaring eyes.
They became entranced...
Tantalized...
With my pain.

One...
By...
One...

The corners of each greed encrusted mouth slivered upward in approval.
They are pleased.
Watching.
Staring with smoldering eyes.
Deceptive.
Disgusting.

"Thank you," I wept softly, "For taking my heart."
You handed them pieces of my bloody pain...
The pleasure...
As they watched silently.
Smirking.
Sickening.

I...
can't...
speak...

My head falls heavily upon my protruding clavicle-
Above a gorry, rigidly carved, hollow chest.

They are gone.
The lights diminish as my essence fades...
And you take your final steps through the closing brass doors.
Heavy.
And locked.
Forever.
You are gone.

Thank you for letting them watch.
And they did watch...
They watched as the lush, lavish, coveting curtain finally embraced the solid stage floor.
Cold, stagnant blood climbed up the crimson tapered tassels.
I lie limp.
Motionless.
Breathless.
Strands of my long, chestnut brown hair rest in the scarlet moat surrounding my being.
The curtain stills the sway of its heavy, dark, velvet fabric;
Closing forever.
Covering.
Hiding.
Distorting death...

Thank you...
For letting them watch as you killed me....

                                    ...For you cannot live...




                                                                                      ...without a heart...