The Phoenix

Constructive criticism is welcome and always appreciated.

I beckon her to me,
Holding out my arm in welcome.
Slowly she lifts from the ground;
Embers cast away at the flap of her wings
Like a stoked camp fire.
Her wrinkled and calloused talons
Grasp the skin of my outstretched arm.
The epitome of beauty;
The light to which darkness falls afraid.
Her color is red,
Illuminated by her surrounding flame.
Burning away the core innocence
Beset my eyes.
The complete elation I feel
Drops me into my subconscious.
I cannot recall memory;
My mind as blank as the day of its birth.
Every moment she is with me
I feel happiness bloom like rapid pollination.
And as if connected through an unseen bond,
The flame of her wings and body intensifies.
Her innocence; her smile
Widens with mine.
Though she is so beautiful,
Her perch upon my arm is worsening.
I have not the will or heart to let her go,
The pain exhumed, decaying under her talons.

I can feel it melting
Detaching itself from bone.
I can smell the remnant of its wake,
Fuel it with my streaming tears.
I feel her slipping; trying to steady
Upon my burning flesh.

I feel her talon reach the bone my skin conceals.
I’m silent, my mouth wide in scream.
I can feel the skin breaking at the edge of my lips,
But no sound is heard.

As my pain increases,
The frailty of her form begins to show.
Her beauty sickened by the vagaries of my will;
She begins to die.

Though my agony intense,
My tears are for her.
To witness such beauties descent
Pulses venom to the center of my heart.
Her last moments appear,
Our eyes connect.
I begin to witness a fantasy,
As the whites of my eyes begin to shift.
She’s crying.

I look away shutting my eyes.
The burning too intense.
I feel the liquid of her tears touch my charred skin.
Then nothing.
I fear to open my eyes to a world vacant of her beauty.
Shivering over what pain left to set,
I reach over to examine the wound,
Stuttering over the loss;
Sifting the ash,
Remnant of a Phoenix long forgotten.