Chapter 1

Section I: Vampires & the Undead

At two a.m. it grows colder

and it seems darker outside

than I ever imaged it to be.

My room, lit by a single candle

whose flame dances in

unseen drafts from an open pane—

this is where I hide from the world,

where I cower from all evils,

myself included.

I have not gone out in so long—

I have not eaten in so long and

though my stomach remains deathly silent,

my veins hunger for food.

Their rumbling is almost audible.

I do not wish to live any longer

but death is beyond my reach.

I could divide the flesh at my wrist

and watch the dark blood well up

but I’m afraid my need will take control

and I won’t be able to stop myself

from pressing my own flesh, cold,

against my greedy lips to drink.

I cannot drink from the dead

but I am simply not alive—

the unliving undead of lore.

Within my darkened room, where

the candle flickers feebly but

is not extinguished, I begin to wonder

if I could drink from me.

* * * *

Whose is the blood which flows

through your long dead veins?

Hated yet admired

dead yet not

you are but another lost soul

searching for salvation

the only way you can.

And here you are, now, with me,

searching through a love

that transcends time

transcends life

transcends immortality

and eternal

damnation.

The darkened road you walk alone

deep in the Valley of Death

is not the path I wish to tread

but if you take me now in hand

if you lead

I shall follow.

* * * *Stay—it will be but a short while

for now is my time

but my powers are limited

my charms weakening

and the day comes.

Envisioning the burning orb of sunlight

I cringe at the thought

the very idea

of everything laid bare before me

no shadow to cower behind

no darkness to cover my sleep.

Stay—hide me away in your protective arms

hide me in your soul

your deepest corner of existence.

Keep me safe—keep me warm

for the night is almost over

and every day I die.

* * * *Mirrors cannot lie

I am not here.

Look for yourself,

see that I have no reflection

in that tempered glass

although I stand before you,

larger than life where there is

no life within me, not anymore.

If the eyes be another set of mirrors,

windows to the soul,

look deep into my fevered orbs

and see…I have no soul

and there is no life within.

* * * *In the darkness, he comes.

Curtains billow and he appears

swathed in black, long hair hanging

before pale skin

painfully drawn.

In the darkness, he comes,

eyes red beneath a sheet of auburn

and teeth bared against the cold

against the dark,

the night.

In the darkness, he comes,

his kisses drawing from me more

than breath, giving me something more

than life,

than death.

In the darkness, he comes,

and through his undead veins my blood

courses; through my dying veins

his does the same.

* * * *your skin, grown cold

its ghost still pressed to mine

your smile, stiff, sepia-toned

in photographs yellowed by time

your eyes, the shine behind them

dead in the early morning light

me, pulled from a grave

where I lie each night

alone, your hands no longer

holding me tight

my heart, no longer beating

in rhythm with yours

which no longer beats.

* * * *No.

I refuse to allow you to do this

this one condemning act.

You don’t realize the consequences

of what you ask me to do.

An eternity damned

forced to seek the life of others

simply to live yourself?

No.

Stop giving me those

pleading eyes, those

adoring eyes, those

damnably living eyes.

I am too weak against you

I want you too badly to stop

but I love you too dearly

to condemn you to me.

* * * *His Creation

days have folded into years

yet I remain the same—an old woman

trapped within a doll’s body.

porcelain skin, china hands,

marble eyes whose depths betray

my weariness, a full mouth with lips

painted red, as if with blood.

he who made me loves me

as a child loves a toy, only when

he wants to and not out of need.

he has made me stable in a changing

world;

no matter where he goes or

what he does, it’s me he returns to,

here, in our little doll house.

but I cannot survive on his pretend love,

his pretend cookies and tea.

I need something stronger, something

thicker,

to sustain my aged soul and so,

when he is gone,

I eat women.

a few years older than the age I will

never be, whose care he turns to because

this child’s body does not comfort him,

although he made it to do just that.