3. gone
I wondered how many women you had stolen from, before you stole from me. Took the gold right out of my hands. Didn’t see the meteor I had tucked behind my back. Barely felt it, too. You never saw it coming. You had never gotten caught before. I was your first in that sense. But nowhere else, let’s admit it. We’re both adults here.
Yeah, you’d ease in like a cowboy, doll them with your eyes and latch them onto lust with your dancing of innocence. By morning, you were picking rubies off the burial sights you shaped after the death you reigned. You always stung with your tongue. Like you were looking down the barrel of a gun when you had something to say. You just couldn’t keep quiet. Your mind was the pistol you wanted to put down but couldn’t give up the feeling you got when you rubbed the trigger.
You loved the sound the bullets make, ricocheting off the glass bottles. Like music to your ears and the ushering in of the morning-after you earned for in the evenings. The solitude that comes after your reckoning of hearts and bulldozer of confidence. Once the dust settled and the bottles were broken, you’d pack your things and move to the next town over. One more heart in your arsenal, still bleeding from the veins.
You never remembered their names but you’d wear what you took like a prize around your neck. A simple bandana or a new pair of pants, you painted yourself with their mastery of art. Bowing down to the genius of goddesstry you gave your attention to. Only the ones lucky enough to be gifted with your inevitable dismissal. Wearing your prey like royal decorations. Your own secret ceremonials.
Of course, they got better with time. You start small then you chip away at the big fish to fry. Flooding your fountain with the kind of gold coins to make your holy water over flow. No matter the size, you fit them in your pockets and rode off on horseback.
Leaving without a trace like a ghost walking through a dirt haze, gone.