By Laura Pathe
The Heart that wilts within your chest
Could crumple at a touch.
Cruelly tortured at your behest
It’s stained a yellow blush.
Hung upturned and left to dry
unbidden tears do fall.
Floating with the petals of
Your sagging, forlorn Heart.
They float upon a growing flood
Decayed and etched with mould.
Heaving sobs wrack the shell
As tears leak round your soul.
The Heart drip-drips with venom,
Scorching cracking sores,
Its on your breath and in your eyes,
Congealed to block your pores.
The heart that seeps within your chest
Infects you with its yellowing mist
Creeping all around your limbs
The nails upon your hand curl in
and scratch the prickled palm-skin…
Was once this yellowed orb
A succulent, dripping red?
You placed your lips, drew a breath,
There’s no life left, it’s leaked –
It’s dead.
It is drooping down inside of me:
My yellowing heart within.
A stain upon my being,
I can’t begin to speak
My words lose their meaning
And my heart wilts and sags
The life is sucked from me.
Laura Pathe is currently studying for an MA in Gothic Literature. She recently moved to Manchester due to the city’s vibrant Gothic scene and writes as a way of expressing the struggle to find a sense of individualism in an increasingly fast-paced and demanding society.
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