PRETTY BOY

PRETTY BOY

I crept into my soul in the profoundest night:
where spectral owls honked and hooted in fickle fright
and tongues rasped out sihouettes-
deepening shadows crawled from dirty mouths,
and love slunk around tattered skirts
in imitation of fungi growths:
paper covered me from head to shin
when I let the shadows thin fingers in!
words assembled like building blocks
men in high-heels/boys in frocks.   
                         In the morning, the sun
scoured my skin. I leant on the devil, standing alone,
                          he flipped me a coin
like he'd just tossed me a biscuit and a blood-red bone,
               as I whimpered into the mirror's torn
shimmering shafts of innocence, where beauty assaulted the black-eyed crone
for salutory afternoon tea,
the pretty boy charging the ugly boy an extortionate fee. 

and the devil sang in the metronomic gloom
of departed joys.
I returned to my room, 
playing with the boys-
coming intensely as the ice displayed
the solitary if fashionable route to Hades.