divine inspiration

i see the promise of death in every inch of your beauty. the sweet fruit of your flesh hangs low on the branch. triumphant and trembling, your thin skin holds a deeply drawn design. i can only imagine it's as sweet as it is dark. burning a fiery red, your hair mirrors my desire for you and what i'm sure will be the color of the flames in hell.

the philistine's bane told me he sees the same thing every day. told me he could pick your fruit very easily if he wanted to. i couldn't get any of the words out at the time, but i wanted to shout, "stay away from her if you can! she'll remain on your lips and tugging at your gut forever"

i feel a tug on my sleeve; i turn to see my best man digging a grave. he bums a smoke from me, lights it, and then asks, "but aren't you still looking upon the tree's fruit with fear? this is a pleasure unlike any other, this amber prize! even YOU do not know her sting; not YET at least."

curling up in my pew, i clutch the wooden arm rest, for i would surely float away if it were not there. i turn my eyes slowly, a rusted door hinge back to the front of the sanctuary. my voice escapes violently and sounds strangely like a falling missile. "i grOW more hesITAnt to APPRoaCH thEM, thE mORE THEy APPEAR. i've always been told to chop them down but they keep springing up."

"what if you only kept the ones that grew closest to your window?" a stream of hot acid from the black mouth of romance boils in my ear. "you're always crawling back to the comfortable roots of those dead trees"

i would kick her out if she didn't pay most of the rent, so i patiently reply, "they have ceased to feed me but stand as monuments to my failure...if they were gone, i might forget it all." i watched the window pane shake with the invisible force of the spirit. it blows the few remaining dry leaves off the brittle branches and across the pulpit that stands in the corner. there stands the foreman, in his clean white suit, pointing a fat finger at me.

"take all of that dry memorabilia and burn it, you fool! it's useless nostalgic rubbish, all of it! if you throw yourself on the fire you might even be refined by its flame."

i cannot do anything with these characters shouting in my ear.

what can i do? they're no longer here to help me...

so i walk up to you; the cursed fruit with the skin and the hair and the fiery core, and i take the first bite.