blackened butterflies.

blackened butterflies panic overhead
shrieking 'i love you's & falling to their deaths

smothering the daylight, abusing the sky
a thousand beating wings blot out the sun

stained by soot & ash & smoke
& dripping smudged tattoo-ink notes

written to the stars on lacy fluttering things
too evil for heaven, too delicate for Hades

& so many lie crushed, covering the gravel road
these fragile messengers of death

wings broken & ripped like the petals of a rose
smashed into the ground, bleeding paint-color red

suffocating slowly in the thickening fog
frantically searching the putrefied sky

a necklace of forget-me-nots strangles me
as the heatwaves twist & pull it tight

then, tarnished like copper & tainted like love
a toxic, burning shower of acid rains down

scorching the skin, searing the flesh
setting fire to bruised & beaten souls

whose screeching then, like nails on a chalkboard,
forces me into twinges of consciousness
with pangs of regret

& blackened butterflies scream their sorrows
as they descend, tumbling slowly to the ground.