Blood Streams
She saunters by carelessly,
with her shoulder length bob and dark blue lipstick,
when time stops for me,
and my thoughts draw back to her past,
her very recent past,
where she drew closer into her lover’s embrace,
nuzzling her chin nearer to his exposed neck,
and opened her mouth.
I discovered my body tightening, my eyes wincing,
as I beheld her prominent fangs
penetrating into his unwilling flesh,
and witnessed the writhes and squirms
of impending mortality,
and the blood streams running down his back,
crookedly, due to his last struggles.
A shudder brings me back to the present,
and my eyes lock in on hers,
and she smiles, most enticingly,
and seductively draws her hand across her bosom.
Each of us assumes the role of the predator,
simultaneously drawing the other further into the web,
of streaming blood and impending death.
As she begins her approach towards me, I know
that only the coming of morning will signal,
which of us will still draw breath for the following day.
Inevitable
Murmurs echo from the dark walls,
but I am not afraid of them.
Instead, I turn towards the mirror
in the hallway, and gaze
upon my own pallid reflection.
In most probability,
I will die tonight.
Without exception,
on each of the last five nights,
one of us has died.
And since I am the last one,
reason concludes that I will be next.
Our crew chief, overbearing and relentless,
was the first to go.
Followed by our researchers and cameraman.
And last night, came the most painful blow of all,
the loss of my fiancee,
hung by chains from the ballroom chandelier.
I suppose I might have fled,
like one of the researchers had attempted,
leaving the morbid discovery on the following morning,
of his body, hacked to pieces, in the woods.
But there would be no one left to find me.
And so, as the sounds of chains begin to drag
through the empty chambers, in my direction.
I simply draw a final breath,
before turning aside to face the inevitable.
Blades of Grass and Dewdrops
From the cool blades of grass, the dewdrops cling
to my slacks, as I stride over for my first glimpse of
the corpse. A male this time, short haired, clean cut,
a spider web tattoo is branded onto his shoulder.
His skin bears slashes, his knuckles bruised, yet
even more gruesome is the angle of the head, his neck
snapped, leaving such innocent eyes pleading
toward heaven, searching for answers or mercy.
But it is too late for that, far too late, I conclude.
Even in death, there is far too much indignity in a
mangled corpse. I glance at the trooper to my side,
but his only response is a silent shake of his head.
For this man knows, as well as I, that no answers will
arise from this dead soul, who has chosen as a final
resting place, to lay among the
cool blades of grass and the dewdrops.
Sinister Inclinations
Stepping into somebody else’s nightmare,
I fathom the blood streaked walls,
and take in the smell of rot, of mildew, of decay.
No lightbulbs left in their sockets,
as if to glorify the darkest of portraits.
There is a staircase, however,
and by ascending its height,
my footsteps draw its groans and creaks,
and just past its precipice I find
the victim’s bedroom.
On the floor by the bed,
sprawling as if the result of a clumsy fall,
is the corpse. A female this time,
hispanic, curly haired and light skinned,
her skin much paler due to the sharp contrast of death.
A gold stud adorns her nose,
and her eyes, so clear and green,
oblivious to the fact they will never see again.
She was pretty, I observe, and as the coroner
steps from the room, leaving us alone,
I briefly place a fingertip on her pallid lips,
and trace their cold outline.
Her humanity reduced to a mere statistic,
she’ll go down as victim number two.
As I begin to jot down notes, I mutter a single curse
towards the murderer, and his sinister inclinations.