Death's Bride

Originally published in Haunted by Quill & Crow Publishing House

She smiles with cracked lips 

stained by bleeding gums, 

her pale face hollowed 

as she waltzes alone in the decaying ballroom, 

dreaming of the man with silver eyes 

who once swirled her with his hand at her waist 

before her skin sagged,

matching the yellowed, rotting lace of her gown, 

amongst the bruises,

her marrow leached from her bones,  

waiting for the day she faints one last time

 and he comes to carry her home

---

She existed in a labyrinth of endless corridors brimming with narrow ghosts who danced with the candlelight crawling up the walls. On the nights sleep evaded her, she paced them, the hem of her lace nightgown gathering dust from the unswept floors. Other nights, she lay supine on her four-poster bed, staring at her door, left wide open as if it was the mouth of Hell beckoning her home. She lost track of the days, her skeleton starting to protrude from her skin like the rat carcasses she fed to the crows. Over time, her back teeth started to fall out, and she added them to the jar she kept at her bedside. It startled her now as it rattled, a knock at her front door.