i.
the river lethe runs through her fingers, and she will kiss her palms until her lips are stained white. she devours her precursor’s heart under the waning lune. eve ruptures the skin of fruit, chang’e drinks the archer’s elixir, persephone prods the lip of her lover: she shrouds pearls beneath her tongue and lets them froth in the tempest of her wine.
 

ii.
nine of ten suns bleed into silk. the last leaves icarus drowning. and your muse is not a temptress nor a siren, radial artery embroidered in gold. sew a cross to your breast and call the maiden a goddess. intimacy like asphyxiating: is this what it means to worship? open pandora’s box with a slip of the tongue and you have betrothed yourself to the promise of a magnum opus.
 

iii.
take her to the carnations beneath the moon. and there lies her predecessor: with lotuses carved into
her eyes. you have tried sculpting artices into atriums, draped a veil over the withered spouse of a long-forgotten muse, let a silver-tongued statue bask in gold. you have not known perfection by your hand, so tug divinity along her crimson thread and drink, cradling fire like prometheus. it is her dowry.

 

iv.
incense into her cathedral, preservation for one night more. her fingers plunge into inherited wine,
temperance becomes antonym to temporary.and there is a story of bastardised devotion, and does it truly matter what her intent is, if chang’e still embraces the sky, wicked in one archive and untarnished in the second? does it matter what is the origin of your mastery, though it is not birthed by clarity, if it is still yours?

 

v.
prometheus bares his liver to the last sun, you bare yours to a vineyard. and she is the marriage of the scattered myths you have hemmed together. the pursuit of a masterpiece. muse whispers to you the script, brings your hand to her lips, your wrist to her tongue. a paragon which exists only in the midst of delirium, absent from your material incongruities. steal the stars from her eyes.
 

vi.
she is your muse. sink your teeth into her lower lip when she dares to lead you astray. choking on asphodels wilting in her larynx, she drowns you in the lethe at dawn—and like eurydice, after you have bled her dry, call her beloved. turn to stare her in her stolen sight. when you wake, you know only two things: starlight rots beneath the sun, and nectar lingers on your fingertips.