Wings Of Pale Decay

Wings Of Pale Decay
© Surazeus
2025 05 09

Awake on thin ice of their fragile hearts, 
too taut to trust with steps they need to take, 
they float on tattered wings of pale decay 
above the milk-glass pond of fabled fate 
with faces bulging from the weightless tide 
to mouth mute song of hope sealed by despair. 

White bones of birch limbs bruising metal sky 
deny sweet innocence of loyal faith 
with creak of lovers shifting in their bed, 
too old to cry, too young to hide their fears, 
who wrap old coats around their paper skin 
as seams, stitched tight by needle of doubt, split. 

Bright mirrors in their house of memories 
may turn their backs against sad face of doubt 
if they refuse to see what hope as grown 
with trembling fingers, cold from spidery thought, 
yet they unbutton coats their past selves wore 
that radiate rancid scent of petrichor. 

They feed hearth fire with photographs of fate 
that bend combusted into throat of light 
which swallows smiles they lose in moaning grass 
since pictures that record their happiness 
lie with red eye of burning time to watch 
how they are almost not afraid of death. 

The shrieking kettle on the grumpy stove 
boils fiercely till consequences condense 
in sweating windows that should mourn the cold 
till they grow colder with clean frost of love 
while porcelain dolls inside glass bell jar 
ring sharp when no one listens close enough. 

When shadows scissor through unopen doors 
at falling of the fork that stabs the floor, 
they share heart-warming meal with wordless care, 
though cutlery protests their sleight of hand 
since ghosts would like to eat dreams of the dead 
sweet-salted with sour taste of memory. 

White crow of truth perched on the mailbox post, 
with head side-tilted through psychiatry, 
inquires with glassy eyes about their grief 
till they explain they are their mirrored twins 
as soulmates sleeping in the claw-scraped book 
with names their children bury in their hearts. 

Dawn sun peels off cracked sorrow with contempt, 
too bright with raw alertness for their eyes, 
that butchers darkness with intense concern, 
revealing painful truths they mean to hide, 
still they hold hands, old spirits cracked by love, 
faithful lovers adjusted in one whole.