Nero

I want nothing more than to cause you pain.

I hope every time you see me, you wince.

I hope it's excruciating.

Pinprick after pinprick after pinprick, until you have bled out every facet of your identity that once endeared you to me.

Let's be friends now.

Make sure I'm in your life.

Because my tongue feels like a knife and I'm carrying it between my teeth like an assassin that's coming in the night.

And then I'll fiddle.

Just call me Nero.

I want to dance in your burning ruins.

I want to confuse you.

I want you to doubt yourself, your actions, your worth.

I want you to hurt.

And now I've got the tools to make it so.

Stand back, I'm burning some bridges.

Or better yet, come closer.

Martha

Practicing Pope-like rhyming couplets to describe someone.

"Martha"

She stands by herself in a great white room,

Clothed in a shroud of melancholy gloom,

Eyes fixed like an eagle with easy prey

On a table of treats on bright display.

Éclairs, cookies and sponge cakes soaked in cream,

She approaches as in a daze, or dream.

Her slender fingers graze sweet after sweet,

Caressing, touching, not daring to eat.

She chooses a cake with trembling hand,

The temptation much too much to withstand.

But there are so many options to choose,

Afraid she won’t like it, afraid she might lose

Her appetite, so she spits out the cake

And throws it away, there’s too much at stake

To choose just one, a decision too great

To fathom now, she’s becoming irate.

The table is overturned with a bang,

The cakes and the candy might as well hang.

She falls in a huff, devoid of her spread,

Her once shining world is now full of dread.

By herself in the room, there’s a scream like a squall;

She wanted everything, but has nothing at all.