Creeping In

A poem about old memories that just won't leave

Two lily pad irises
Floating in a milk white pond
With no bottom
Down below
Mermaids swim
Not beauties, but monsters
Clawing away
Trying to pull me under

Regret, Remorse
For having sipped
This tantalizing concoction
Of ecstasy and fear
Absinthian nightmares
Keep creeping in

I can still feel
Hot handprints stinging my hips
When I walk...
My boiling red heart dropping
When they talk...

I recall the scent
Of singed hair and wax
From that time
That I sat watching
The candlewick burn
As everything
Everything
Melted away

Nothing left,
But brittle bone
And
The
Bitterness
Of nicotine and coffee
Dripping from dark lips