A Star- Crossed Love Letter

To: The Masked Stranger
From: The Brown- Eyed Gypsy

I am ensnared still in the bars of rusting iron, in the concrete walls, cold and stubborn. The seconds eat away at me, at my flesh and mind, with the rough brutality that time bites with. In my insanity, I pace the small room to the rhythm of the silent tune that echoes in my dripping mind, the condescending mendacity of day-to-day life leaving me with nothing to do but scratch and bite at an itch so far in my skin it seemingly runs through my blood. But while my body decays, somewhere in the fiddling of my thumbs, my mind buzzes with the madness of confinement, at war with the waves of memories both of the joys of freedom and of the monsters that lurk beneath my cage. Among this madness, amidst the blood ridden chaos, however, lies the nostalgia of lying in your arms and listening to your heart beat as my own races. Your eyes, dark and warm, caress me softly through their mask, and with every inch of heat closing between our moving bodies, the beauty that has escaped from my reflection over the years made itself known once more. You alone have the power to utterly destroy me, body and soul. But all you have done is build. I still know you not, my Masked Stranger, and your true name escapes my grasp, whether it be "Angel" or "Demon". A stranger you are, and shall remain if you wish, as long as your love is known and true. I pay my sentence for the sin of a dark mind that shakes a tambourine to your dark heart's beat. A witch, a seductress, a whore: thus has become the brand on my skin to name me for the siren's song I sing; a song that is in reality a howl to the waning moon, a wail of the misery I panhandle from the demons that line my prison walls. Your mystery beckons through the night, through the glare of the starlight filtered through the iron bars. It sings me to sleep and pleasures me awake. I saw a passion in your eyes that day, oh Stranger; a passion that danced and crackled like a deliciously scorching flame. It is a fire I crave and thirst for. And my itching blood aches for it and my racing mind obsesses for it and my bitten lips beg for it. This gypsy calls for the man behind the mask: the one man who is capable of taming her snake of a soul, of breathing the life back into her body, and of restoring the song that once echoed in her heart. I await you, my love. Every week-long second and year-long hour is spent in payment for the few minutes I can spend with you, seconds that soar away in the blink of an eye. In the meantime, I pace here, still in my box of iron and unforgiving concrete, a mad woman in love with a dream. Until you save me; until I can taste that crackling flame and hear the dark heart of solid gold beating beneath your skin, beneath your mask; until then, my dearest love, I will wait relentlessly with no company but the echo of my tambourine, the demons on my wall, the monsters under my cage, and the memories of your kiss. This gypsy has relinquished herself. I am forever yours.