• The crystal bell dings merrily,
    A calling card welcoming us through the gates of hell,
    The pawn shop.
    Other discarded items surround me.
    They stand like sentries .
    Memories and fashion statements gone dull with time,
    Spectral ghosts.
    The stench of rotting wood and cockroach feces consumes.

    The woman is my host. Like a parasite I am nothing without her.
    My meaning is nothing without that warmth of her hand
    beneath my arctic golden skin.

    We approach the front desk.
    A grisly man
    Skin like a leather mask is hidden ,
    Beneath a wiry ebony scruff of a mustache
    His speckled clouded tresses cling to a balding scalp.
    His eyes like soulless beads,
    The hunger of wealth glowing like a black flame.

    My lady gets nervous,
    Massaging my band reminding herself of the lying inscription
    To my one and only love.
    I begin to slip off, my viper grip not enough.
    A moment of pain as I am torn
    Away,

    She twirls me in her fingers ,
    Staring at my faceted gem,
    Translucent mirrors capturing her memories.
    My eyes captured it all.
    From flirtatious chuckles to desperate tears,
    From lovers embrace to polka-dot bruises,
    From second honey moons to forgotten anniversaries;
    My purpose?
    Her reminder of the promise she made that fateful day.

    The dealer’s voice is grizzly as a croaking frog.
    His inquiring is simple-minded if not idiotic.
    I’m alone and frozen cut off from my only tenderness.
    My host who I’ve come to know after a decade of soul-searching speaks.
    Her voice is like a harmonic melody, oh so very familiar.
    Her words are meaningless, an indescribable gibberish.
    All the same, it is my song.

    I’m transcending beyond my makers hand,
    Declining to the depth of a hollowed blackness.