Word Thingys: Salome Strangelove
She says “love me or leave me” and she really means it
One hand on the scepter, the other the door
Says “give me your soul” and she plans to keep it
She’s harvested so many others before
She knows her own way and she knows how to get it
With weapons and wisdom that no one expects
She beckons and lures — it binds if you let it
There’s no antidote once you’ve felt her effects
Oh and she disappoints all she loves
Though they handle her with velvet gloves
The most precious thing you’ve never seen
The fortress of the poisoned queen
You’ll fall in line as she holds court
O’er masquerades of last resort
Where the walls are merely paper
And the ceilings merely glass
There’s no room to play at savior
Only pilgrims here may pass
The most precious thing you’ve never seen
The fortress of the poisoned queen
He orders up bourbon but he never drinks it
Just watching the amber at play with the ice
It’s been fifteen years to the day since he quit
He still bears the scars and still bargains the price
Recalling the water that flooded his lungs
The dark closing in on all sides like a kiss
Sinking colder and deeper, salt swelling his tongue
As welcoming demons patrolled the abyss
And how she nearly broke him with her love
Though he handled her with velvet glove
The most precious thing he’d ever seen
That fiery girl not yet a queen
Her promises poured out like wine
From smiling eyes, and shape divine
Fingers soft as satin silk
Her warm caress still haunts
Lips as sweet as honey milk
How he still dreams of what he wants
The most precious thing he’d ever seen
That fiery girl not yet a queen
On rare moons she still sends for him
The guards don’t meet his eye
He knows the hidden ways within
His knee may bend, his chin stays high
Through muslin and through organdy
He draws her secrets down
Into the brine and tempest sea
In which he still aches to drown
Chaos caterwauls ring out like bells
Oak splinters and stones shake
Between the heavens and the hells
Of the oaths they both forsake
Too soon the time runs out again
A brutal, bittersweet routine
If only he were not a fisherman
And she was not a poisoned queen
But their walls are merely paper
And their ceilings merely glass
And there’s no room to play at savior
Only pilgrims here may pass
So be grateful you have never seen
This fortress of the poisoned queen