Red Velvet Pleats

The day I met you, you were all in black,

Your heart gently bleeding and nailed to a plaque,

Singing butterflies tangled each thought

And clouded in mist the words we sought.

 

A home of paper, white paint and pain,

We’d dance on the stairs and hide tears in the rain,

With fingernails we’d scratch at textured pages

And rule from soaring gilded cages.

You scattered my name to cover your woes

And pierced my flesh with a single red rose,

You shattered your skull in search of a muse

And I ensnared your wrists in a hundred tattoos.

We’d ignite on cream paper, leather-bound,

When we screamed the others didn’t hear a sound,

My hand in yours amongst heart-shaped eyes,

Destroying and obliterating all we despised.

I saw only beauty in your sinister designs,

Your jerky scrawl, your ethereal lines,

The red velvet pleats that enveloped your form

Seemed to reveal that you’d never conform.

Suits and shirts, you were sharp and defined,

Presentable, polite, though sadistically inclined,

But you’d close your eyes and in dreams you’d drown,

Your pleats unfurling and falling down.

I stitched them up with bleeding cries

Until your armour began to rise,

But when I needed you here to stay,

You gathered your pleats and ran away.

A dozen letters, sealed and signed

That in your hurry you left behind,

A jagged, red figure glaring, betrayed,

And a scrap of velvet which has begun to fade…