Candle Lit

Candlelight is elegantly flattering. The delicate dance of a solitary flame rising upwards, outwards... inwards. It is a honey that can reach into any darkness, sweetening it, softening it, enlivening it, warming the macabre and cold callouses left by life.

I look at my hands. My ivory skin is like tracing paper, parched yet alive with a scribble of shadows from another time. Such exquisite fingers. Long and slender, their regal shadows stretching into the honied light like phantoms mingling at dusk. How I used to cherish these hands, shielding them from every element, fearing liver spots from the sun or ruddiness from the cold. What I would give to see such weathering now.

Ha! As if I have anything left to give, and yet I recall I once had so much! People would pay me to turn up at parties, to wear their clothes, to be seen with me, endorsed by me. I was everywhere; I was on the tip of everyone's tongue, making them salivate for more. Now, nobody sees me apart from Marco. Not that he... Oh, Marco. My beautiful Marco, with eyes so deep and dark that glisten and sparkle even in the faintest glimmer of light. Eyes that would look at me with an unquenchable thirst and weep in disbelief as we danced together in the rhythm cast by the flutters of our candlelight at Valentine's. Where are you, Marco? I miss you.

I remain unsure of what happened. There was so much, then so little, and then nothing. It was as though all that was hedonistic and thrilling: the parties, the events, the celebrity life, and the endless opportunity for sex... it all seemed to fizzle away in the wake of its bomb. Yet, I seem to recall I wanted this. I do not feel like a victim. This great house that reaches out around me, with all its echelons of gothic splendour, to be cocooned within these walls away from the madding crowds, protected by the love of a man who would do anything for me. That was my ultimate dream; that was my reality, wasn't it?

The candlelight dances with the glow of an angel against the vaulted ceiling. Each brick, carved by hand, stoic in receipt of its fluttering kisses. There is such strength in these walls; they remain straight and certain, stalwarts of purpose. These walls have earned my respect over the years. I wish I could be as certain and stoic as them.

I am not even certain how long I have been here, and as for kisses, well, I don't get them anymore. They only now exist in my memory, in the dusty pockets I shake out from time to time to watch the motes of their melancholy float in the makeshift light of my mind's eye. I grow weary of watching them; there is a conspiracy in how they move that drains me.

Sometimes, I think this candlelight could be the last light left in my life, and I have no idea how many wicks remain. I have never wanted to know when the darkness will completely consume me. Surprises are so few, and as fear and excitement are so closely knit, I shall cherish what may well be my last one.

I used to live in hope. I would bathe in it, be saturated by it; it would spring eternal within me. But it faded, as hope does under inspection. A small part of me regrets donating so much of my candlelight to it, but hope is an addictive drug, and I was drunk on its foolishness. Oh, to be that fool again! To hear footsteps above and feel my heart race in flurries of anticipation, to believe that all the repression swirling inside me was about to be released. To hear the creak of an old, heavy gothic door grinding open and the tread of boots coming down the stone stairs. Step. Step. Step. I would race about to the tune of it, readying myself, draping silks across my pearlescent skin, and positioning myself by the candle like a jewel amidst a salute of shadows. Marco was coming, and he would bring gifts just like he had that first night we spent together as Valentines. My mind would swirl in the glorious romance of anticipation, every molecule of my whole tantalised by the expectation. What gift would he bring this time? A small child, a young buck, a nubile virgin?

Oh, how I long to hear those footsteps again and dance in the candlelight with my Valentine.