Handle With Care

the Light was lost for all but Eclipse.

her tastes better suited to those of finest flesh,

lamp posts swaying softly as they sunk into the compost.

a love for everything she had, excluding Dragon-

breath. she slipped her fingers along the rims of banana-

colored, polka-dotted, ferment-lined boots.

 

she only owned one pair of shoes now: those boots.

the Love was lost for all but Eclipse.

she tripped as she slopped them on, landing in banana-

colored mush. better that that slough off another pound of flesh,

she thought, shoving the Dragon

away. she thought about tossing him into the compost,

 

but quickly thought better of losing a part of herself to the compost.

soon enough, up filled her little yellow boots,

and little flames tickled her earlobe. the Dragon

was hungry again. hungry for all not yet lost to Eclipse.

if he was truly a being of the flesh,

perhaps, she thought, he might be about the size of a banana.

 

she laughed before she thought better of mocking him. he'd be 50 bananas

high, she thought, and then i could feed him to the compost.

but he'd never be a being of the flesh, she knew, for flesh

can bleed, and it was only ever her own blood filling her boots.

the Lamb was lost, even to Eclipse,

nibbled and nibbled and gulped by the Dragon

 

until she forgot. mostly what she remembered was the Dragon.

sometimes she couldn't even remember that the banana

mush was coating the senses now lost, even to Eclipse.

sometimes she thought about putting herself in the compost.

she thought about leaving nothing but a little yellow boot

behind, a reminder of the flesh

 

capsule that oncr held the Dragon. the flesh

sack so tightly packed with scales and Dragon

teeth that sometimes the tail oozed into her boots.

maybe being a banana

in my next life would be easier, she thought, falling into the compost.

the Lies were lost for all but Eclipse.

 

she didn't want the Dragon,

sitting there, gnawing at her flesh as if it were a banana

about to go bad, mushing her into compost with naught but a pair of boots.

(but the Lamb had willed it so.)