(c. by ruejacobs 10/17/08 3 A.M.)
it's an aeriel manuver
this balancing act on thin air
and i've been doing it for years

what other craft
could sustain life for so long
in this atmosphere?
orchid-like, i sink my roots down deep
i balance on that air, then.

and seen from below
one might call it grace

the ember whose flame
lays buried beneath white coal
you'd be a fool
blow away its shell of ash, Love

let it lie, let it alone

i have always been a bonfire
don't question a parasite
just dig it from your flesh
thorns and all
and cast it away
before it consumes us both

one word from you will grant it fuel
entire worlds will burn to cinders
i have awakened more fires in my day
than i care to count

i have burned like a witch in Salem
i have burned like a martyr in Rome

i might grow weary
of clinging to your surface
like an exotic moss
of surviving on nothing but air

i know but little else

i have prayed to every deity i know
to avert this conflageration
those gods lie silent as the dirt
impotant and sterile as sand

now there is only you

how shall i nurture
when i know only want?

even now, those leaves smoulder and curl
your strength falls from you like the snow
it piles in drifts at your feet

leeching your will, i do not relent
i wrap those vines around you
and those vines are the vines that choke

i am the daughter of the Underworld
i am the child of Hel

brimstone has nothing on me

from the ground far below
the canopy may look majestic

no one could imagine what goes on up here.