Ghosts plaited and intertwined amongst the loose wisps of her mane, like collected finery and melancholy blues, striking, poignant filaments of the sprig buds and winter crescendos. Specter requiems floated amongst her head, wrapped around the vibrant tiara, the noble brow, gathered and convened in a massive, fervent whisper, springing wraith stanzas, lurking and shirking glass castles and gilded oubliettes. She requested them over and over again to dance along the enshrined glow, the passionate, ardent twigs and soulful plumes, a fey monarch nestled in the hillside caves, waiting for the nymph puissance to beckon them deeper into the foray. A lure, a siren, without the violence, without the lies, without the specious blood pooling beneath pits and pendulums, laced and woven into the slits of rose hips and gardenias, affectionate harpsichords and elegant arches – a fleeting glimpse into the beneficent. Enriched enchantment, radiant and glowing, ablaze, aglow, cinders captured into smoldering into bright, vivid, intense incandescence, prayers formed and sculpted, molded into electric bliss. Where sin fell away, divinity stole its pedestal, virtue and enigmas twisted into searing elation, and where morality distorted, nocturne regalia molted into torrential, turbulent licentiousness, eating away at the core until she remembered, recollected, the silken, dulcet murmurs of her ethereal essence. Ambience and beguilement, reflecting croons of the warm, of the tender, of the euphoric amongst ruined columns, waltzing to crisp minuets, hearts aflutter across stone monuments and rubble altars, jungle kings and queens, dragging knees and daggers across pebbles and the undone, encompassing the space between anthems and iron bars with the might, the stalwart, the staunch declaration of pride, strength, and audacity. Emboldened, christened, anointed, drinking monolith hymns and absolution’s laments, slinking amongst petals and fronds, immersed in the labors of their satin dew, each wanton breath a zealous cling to life, a feverish tip, a vehement, consuming alteration of captured caprice into wild whims; a muse of misfits. Her twirls, her pirouettes, sought accompaniment afresh, anew, a beautiful grin dragging, coaxing, cajoling the phantom, the impersonator, the knight, from the sectors and sanctions of midnight driftwood – she continued their entanglement into the water’s babbling mirth, swaying into its midst, splashing into the wake of its hold and mercy.

Bulb and blossom of the chained exultation, the exotic gleam of her eyes followed his movements, his motions, invited in kindred allures, traced smiles along the dignified stature of his lips, and she laughed for the sake of laughing – listening for bells in the cacophony, in the symphony, in the orchestra, instead of trenchant cries and rancorous wails. The seraph and sylph prospered beneath his gaze, for he permitted the art of her finery without corruption sinking and slinking into their boughs, without disgruntlement, without a furrowed brow or hastened retreat. He established mercy and grace, dignity and regality, as she pranced alongside, twittering and chirping. When he didn’t flee from her touch, from her teasing, from her fairy torment or righteous giggles, she finally ceased and basked in the lull of the waterfall, dyed and dappled in its dabbling haze, stroked and stoked by tendrils of droplets and showers. Imogen, ever present, an eternal shift of wilderness, beast, and valor, remained undaunted and unfettered by each situation, made herself at home upon damp rocks, batting at the lapping, lull of the trickling water. The three figures presented a yearning tapestry, a canvas seemingly unsullied, a sonnet perfectly written, when beneath the labors of love and rapture were the secrets, the mysteries, the quandaries, rippling, stifling, and maddening.

Roland cracked the first tome, found the specters, regaled his own adventures and mythos, then intricately planted the seed of sorrows; home. The words beat against her chest, heavy staccatos and heady elegies, slashed ribbons into the reverie, and she felt the picture fall away in one innocent query – witnessed the image float away into the ruins, as desolate as they’d been before. She didn’t feel her smile descend, she didn’t feel her features collapse, and in its place tiny snippets of regret and desolation were crafted, the shame and humiliation, the wonder and despondency left in the wake of retreating, fleeing, and shambles of defeat. Caged again, oubliettes and dungeons, stare falling to watch the foam and froth build around her immersed stature (is it always the darkest before the dawn?), the regal cranium filled with flickering, cherished memories; a towering summit, unshaken, unstirred, relentless and terrifying, glorious and supreme. Caves, warmer than these, familiar and mystifying, reflecting glass revealing abysses and oblivion, hot springs mending and assuaging, lakes never quite chilled, immortal and immoral. The heaven’s breath cooled and frosted, a rime’s concoction of beauty and danger, enticing, fascinating, tempting, lost to the storms, the brutality, the devils and schemes. She longed for every inch of the terrain, the writhing sting of pine needles, the maddening, infinite trace of countless stars, the ventures beneath snow and sleet, the unrepentant, irreverent ice and the lives chiseled into its enamel; portraits and children of Siberia. Catching her glow, she struggled to capture its former spirit, sprite inheritance of prior boldness, hoping that she was not so fallen, not so shattered, in the presence of the companion who bestowed her liberation from the haunting contrasts, silk and steel coveted, undermined, rerouted. Her stare shifted back upon his corporeal, glowing form, wondered, pondered, and struggled, piecing and stitching back the seams of an fierce, fiery, avid being, restoring and rescuing the salvaged peace and benediction. Her words, however, couldn’t help but convey the cumbersome load of loss they’d experienced, trapped and plagued with rooted, rotted misery. “Yes.” Even blooming in the midst of Roland’s token Basin shield, she felt herself sinking and slipping again, saved the faltering with a query of her own (do you suffer too? I can taste every memory, every moment, and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.), building and brewing in the stem of melodies, a quiet spring, a gentle, hushed lull. “Do you?”


@[Roland]