The Painted Lady

From the tip-top
of the towering
fortress,

where productions
remain silent but still produce,

where every rehearsed act
plays on, as if
unrehearsed.

Nobody would know the difference unless
they were watching
from the tip-top
of the towering
fortress,

the place that the universe bends for,
dances for,
multiplies for.

Once, a painted woman sat upon
the tower,
supreme and hungry,
watching
different casts perform…

her muse!

She was born with a gift.
An Eye!
A Wandering Eye!
At her command, her left eye would jump
out of its socket
on hunt
as the hungry painted woman
wished.

The Eye knew not the exact
silage, but
there were markings,
specifics, that the Eye knew to watch for.

The painted woman waited,
high in the clouds,
imposing on conversation
between wind
and
weather….
waiting.

Soon, her Wandering Eye would
return
with her meal –

soldiers, fighters,
carpenters,
shaman,

each had a purpose.

The painted woman would accept her
prey, swallowing them completely
in to
herself,
writhing them in and out of consumption,
pulling them deep into
digestion, her stomach
aching for more,
more, more!

She touched
and kissed
and drooled on
each of their gifts
using each
as her very own until
she was
spent.

Then, she would take her lust-probing eye and
retire,
leaving nothing of
her pillage behind!!

A snake,
overflowing
with lasciviousness!

One day, the brushed lady
was brought a tender
slice of
musician, with sad,
blue diamonds sparkling so bright
that when she saw her reflection
in them,
her left gift, was
immediately calcified,
a vegetable!
Useless!

She barely noticed!

They stood together at the tip-top
of the towering fortress,
oblivious to
acts,
actors,
and
actresses.

All the muse she needed stood
beside her, with a box of suffering chocolates
and rust roses,

begging
her
for consumption! On his knees he
pleaded for
use!

Baffled by his strange request, she conformed to
habit.

The painted woman accepted her
prey, swallowing him completely
in,
writhing his body in and out of her consumption,
pulling him deep, deeper into
digestion, her stomach
aching for more,
more, more!

She touched his gifts,
gently kissed his gifts
caressed each gift as if it were her own
until
the bewitching young
musician was spent, sleeping inside her body.

This had never happened before.
She knew “withdraw”
not “succumb”.
How dare he retire without her!
Leaving her here,
alone,
on the tip-top of a towering
fortress without
her only friend,

her tool!
She panicked when the script
started
in the world below. Its silence
sounded different
somehow.
Heartsick.

At that moment, the lady,
standing at the tip-top of the towering fortress
flung herself
from the security of the towers’ height,
diving to join
the world below!