"Hush," I began, and put my fingers to his lips.

"Hush."

You may not speak. You will not speak. I sew your lips, like so (stitch, darn) like so (stitch, darn) the moonbeams hold them closed.

You will be as naked as the night you were un/born (strip, bare)

Dress in the night
Curl in the sky
Make his toes point
(Hang him up high!)

Hush, you may not speak.

Thus I strip you of your name
(a rope around your feet)
Thus I take the blame
(I hang you from the tree)
Thus I share the shame
(swing free, swing free!)

And let his blood leak, leak

(You may not speak)

The moon is my witness
I dance in your blood
falling like red rain

Only your blood can cleanse us of your sin!

(Like red rain falling, I laugh and swing him free, pushing his shoulders and the rope at his feet creaks as the blood leaks and leaks...)

But hush, you may not speak

The moon is my witness
What once was Stefan
What once was Ren
Is Mine
Is [Nameless]

I cut the rope, the vampyre falls but does not cry. An empty thing, a shell, I lay claim to the body. I swim in its blood, still warm.

Come out, I say
Like Lazarus,
Come out, come out!

And with my athame (with the moon as my witness) I slit my wrist...a small, smiling mouth...

Come out, come out!

The moonlight pooling and dripping down my back...settling in the old scars, (where once were wings) mixing with [nameless's] blood, I slit my other wrist...another cresent grin

Come out, come out! Like Lazarus, come out!

My blood now drip drip dripping on the silvered grass, wasted, wasted...life gone untasted...

Did the shell of a vampyre move?

Come out, come out!

And with a snaggletoothed smile, the once-divine, once-angelic, I slit my throat...blood pouring pouring POURING in a torrent...

Only my blood can cleanse us of my sin!

With four smiling mouths now I murmur

(You may speak)

I burble, blood sprays

(You may speak)

dark heart dark heart dark heart

     DARK HEART

and dark heart moves to me (with grace, with beauty) and kisses my smiling mouths and seals the gaping wounds shut with tender fangs.

Don't speak, he says, & weeps.

Don't speak, he murmurs through clenched teeth.

Don't speak, he cries, and drinks deep.

And thus the christening of

     dark heart

is complete.

copyright 1995 by jewel (Julieann M. Brown-Micko)

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