Erik
leaning against the glass of her mirror,
shuddering deeply in primal utterance.
he moves his palms in circles on the glass.
he turns, panting, telling himself he will not
endure it! he will not allow her voice
to remind him of what he has missed—has he not
calmed that part of him to be silent all these years?
he flees from that purgatory she offers
down toe the cold hole that is his home
the lonely tomb that smells of death
he rips off his civilized opera coat,
tears open his sleeve, maniacally making
it an image of protection
he taps his needle, his sole consolation for
solitude,
stabs his obscene, collapsed veins:
pleasant jolt of temporary containment
soon the world so cold retreats into his puppet
dreamscape, and it is the stars beyond his eyes
to his pulsing heartbeat that the world revolves
the memory of hashish races through his bloodstream
he laughs, dashes to the pipe organ
the memory of opium is sweet, sends gushes
of creamy happiness into his swollen corpse
the memory of Don Juan burns in his stomach
so, he plays
a music that will never be heard by any mortal ear
nor composed from any mortal experiment
with those medallions of glitter within his grasp,
he ravishes her
with thought merely
with a gasp the ecstasy is over
he cannot have her!
he stumbles over to the one mirror in his possession
blasts it to smithereens
pounding out desire
until splinters of glass embed themselves
his unenlightened body
even the pain cannot guarantee relief
he knows he has been sobbing, but for how long?
in a last act of rebellion, he tears off his mask
looks at his hollow reflection
the bombs go off in his brain
he cannot breathe or move
he knows that he is hell
in towering rage he rips the buttons from his shirt
rips the material from his legs
looks at the creature that stares from the fragments
of the mirror
blood flows over the body of the nightingale
a marble statue
cold as ice, pale as salt, thin as bone
tears mix with the blood in the reflection
of the monster death's-head.
he touches his skull
(even as a baby his mother would not caress him)
futile he imagines divesting the girl of her wedding gown
he imagines the pleasure of being touched
of love
at last he falls unconscious
naked white body, fragile white body
amid shards of reflecting glass.