As if the pain were inseparable
from the stagnant air
or the waves of gravity
flowing from her coal black hair.
Her pale skin the color of death
accenting a dagger pierced nose and brow.
Her glossed black lips snarled
beneath cold weapon like eyes all blank
on a dank day in a nowhere song
sung like the random knife cuts
up and down her arm.
Scars that stitched the air with tragedy
and carved reality into the solitude
of her desolate mind.

Her savage Gothic eyes
passionately glaring in despair,
sooth blissfully turbulent
and radioactive.
Every word she spoke
madly adorned the sadness of her soul
with enmity.
For, the enemy was conceptually me
and she was the number seven
dressed in black
playing chess with the devil
like a character in a Bergman film
tattooed to her left thigh.

I wonder who promised her salvation
cashiering in a drug store at Bar Harbor, Maine
where I stopped in for a beer
all parched and worn
on a warm summer’s day dying
as the sun wept crimson sighs setting
behind dark magenta clouds on the horizon
and bled.

Its tears collected along the razor’s edge
when the red droplets flowered and flowed
and I know she wanted to kill me.
I would be the revenge
for a dark love crafted in her crazy dreams.
Yet, I wanted to tell her that I loved her
but could manage only a mollified pity
that felt dirty and shitty
so, I had to get away
and though suicide may save the last cut girl
I’m hoping somehow this poem
might keep you alive.

– Carl Kaucher