Blackbirds

This is very, very unhappy.

You must desist with these beautiful affections towards me. You must stop. I have inside me a place where nightmares lurk and the darkness tiptoes around my bones. I have in my mind a shroud of empty promises and sickly sonnets that I would not hesitate in suffocating you with. I will leave black cinders the creed of hellfire in my wake, for that is all I can do and have ever done. For want of more poignant or eloquent words, I will kill you. And not as kindly as a bullet wound or a strike to the heart through clotted vein, but with the agonising trudge of each passing day. My words will sink into you like teeth, and leave you raw and wounded. Tears will form in your eyes and I will see the great harm I am causing you - and I will not stop. I will pull each hair on end and leave it taut for moments before tearing it from your flesh. I will damage you. I will haunt you with the ghosts of my heart that will creep along your collarbone and live inside your ears. I will see my sallow reflection in your extinguished eyes and claw at your delicate phrases with bloodied fingernails. I will murder everything that you had once come to love about you or me or anything. I will cast away the stars, and pull the satin from heaven. I will taint the clear waters with my blood and sully the rain with my sweat. I will topple mountains, spit on shores, tear every word from every book and feed them to the blackbirds. I will hear the screaming in your heart and it will sound so true of what I hear in me.

I am the spark in every blaze, the ghoul in every shadow and the sludge in every gutter. I am the wasp sting, nettle bite and wind moan. I am panic, fear and frenzy. And you are better off alone.