Mine

She loves me well, her sweet caress
Doth linger on my beaded cheek;
While she will with tender wrath undress
My deepest wound–that blooded streak
On which she feeds, and keeps me weak.
Though she every day unflesh my bones,
Her eyes a crueler vengeance wreak–
With the dust of my heart, and with her own,
She chokes to death my mangled moans.

I lie there alone and alive in the dark,
And whisper and whimper when my lover appears.
My memories sweet, but her hatred so stark
As she sends my mind, and my screams, and my fears
Echoing down hallways of unending years;
And into oblivion–unmourned, unforgiven–
Save by flowers of silence that bloom in my tears.
Shed by a soul too black to be shriven
By my direst damsel, to whom vengeance was given.