Ink Stains
DASHA VALLE
RED
Is that right, my dear?
Is Love why you really ache?
Did you crave
Its ambriosic warmth to lay
Gloved hands on your heart, the wick,
To trace each tear-dropped quivering break
In slippery golden seams?
For Love to catch that dying flame.
To clutch the cinders
The match in water.
Do you remember that grey still?
Before it kissed the wind.
Now ripple, ripple,
Where day’s waking thrum
pummels every breath,
Flicker
My dear,
Can’t you hear its hiss?
Before its lusting arms wrap
you and wash over your face
And the waves on your thighs
My dear, your trembling hands
Cradle whispering, bickering, teetering, lies
My dear, why, could you not see?
The wind found a way to make water bleed.
Bathe the moon in rose red light
And shivering scars
And late-night car
Rides, snarls and
Gnarly talons that gripped your thighs
My deer, backed into the corner
When monstrous lights
Hits monstrous eyes
His monstrous eyes
Blazed
And blind—
The grinding of porcelain cracks
And broken wax.
So please, my dear,
Beware the red moon.
Beware its lovingly crimson hue.
◾
BLUE
dear bruises
why won’t you fade?
fade, fade, to
a time when
2 + 2 once equalled 4.
when everything that came before
could wane
and sink
no more.
but like sunken fruit
you mottle,
your sickly hue achored to the peel.
so I ask instead
for teeming rains
to numb away
the littered footrprints.
for waves to thunder, no, let each tide
send tremors through my spine, i
do not care if they break my sails
if it means i may take breath the next day
without pain.
please,
i beg,
carve my fear out.
too deeply has blue bled into every fissure and vein
and brittled my skull
and rolled my glass eyes
side to side
my face, stained
in sinful watery streaks, you called me
freak.
You.
and your threats that gurgled through the floor.
You.
who thread your ribbons through my ribs
right through
constrict
don’t move
You.
And your necromancer’s touch.
You tatted skin, You
Punctured holes, You
Revelled in the way the
Teeth of the page tasted Me
And when that wasn’t enough
You took to glass screens
To sink your teeth
To your delight
Half a dozen times
Your words, your knives
Your sangreal feast.
I pay the price for what you’ve wrought.
These bruises come from
Your bones. Bones you
battered against my
Skin, car, table and clothes.
The way
Your hungry growls
Closed up
My throat
And choked.
And
Choke—
The breath you stole was not yours to take.
No more.
No more.
◾
Dasha Valle is an Australian-Peruvian writer, passionate about the intricate web of language. She avidly experiments with her writing through her interwoven study of linguistics and creative writing at Macquarie University. Dasha often examines themes of love and loss through impressionistic works of poetry and prose.
