"Corrupted Love" by Daniel Rivera

When one does not know how to love
They must resort to other means
Be it by denying or forgetting, so it is they choose
But sometimes, the flame of a lover is too heated
To ever extinguish
And in such perplexities
One must move forward
Even when they cannot
And if one finds themselves perhaps caught
In the treachery of a spell unknowingly cast
Then the fault lies not in the lover
For their desperate acts of desertion
Or for their misguided means of escape
But for the heart who beat its song too loudly
And for sealing the listener’s fate.

When a woman falls in love
Her passion always consumes her
She can try and laugh and mock
Like a child in the face of a stranger
But her efforts will be for naught
When she feels the harsh sting of rejection.

So it was that Esther May fell in love with a man
On which her eyes had accidentally lay
The malady’s song was his heart’s heavy beat
The poor fawn never had a chance
But in her closed closet of a life unlived
Love was an unwelcome foe
Her soul cried that it had no more room
But the swindler’s tune was already cast
And the need for a partner arose
And poor Esther found herself at a loss
Thinking of the scoundrel’s river eyes.

When one tastes the leaf of a lovely nightshade
And they ponder the death to come
Does one think at all that it wasn’t the herb’s fault?
But perhaps the flower was cruelly cast in the role
Of nature’s dagger?
Who ever once thought that the poison was the choice
Of the flower?
The seductive hymn of a toxin unshed followed
Esther’s nose
The thought of sparkling glass on water, penetrating
Her soul
The taste of ambrosia established itself on her tongue
Whilst the sound of completion taunted her ears
The ‘shade had found its mark.

Assimilation is a seductive manner that
Sways in the thick aroma of candles unlit
The prospect of becoming one with
Something most desired is a trickle
Of blood on a rogue’s tongue
Yet when one knows not how to
Truly blend with the aura of another
And refuses to be obstructed in her mission
Is it really the lover’s own fault?
Can the deluded enticement of a lone
Soul in an ocean of grievance
Be blamed?
Can the tear of a dead man wanting
Nothing but to live be held accountable for
His mistakes?

Esther May put a rose in her purse
On the brisk twenty-third of December
As she followed the river to its veiled source
To finally get her taste of the water
But as a parched man gulps, Esther knew
Not when to stop
And just as quickly as it had flowed
The river was still.
But the death of a prey never bothers
The predator, more so when its frenzied eyes
Are blinded by the power of ecstasy.
Though when the feeding is done
And the soulless is taunted by the deeds
It has done, alternatives are nil
And the ghost of the past and the wail
Of the present are given entrance to the
Lost promise of the future.

Esther May’s resplendent treasure
Was that of a wooden box engraved
In silver
The light of which was the dirge
Of a soul never given the chance to mourn
But when the moon manipulates the tide
To play her partisan games
Can the waters be damned
For the souls of those they
Have seized?
Just as the nightshade is trampled for her transgressions,
Just as the lover is slain for her existence,
The tides will be eradicated for their misfortunes.
Abandoned in a box in the company of oblivion,
With nothing but a withered rose,
A heart strikes the consonance of ardor unreturned
Its lyrics never to be heard again.