Three Poems by Emily Mulligan

    

                                                        

Blood Personified

  

She’s in the writing on the wall penned by a self-inflicted gunshot,

She flows through the scarlet bathwater of a volitional execution,

She trickles down the legs of blossoming femmes,

And explodes in a sanguinary blast of new life.

 

She appears through the slicing of flesh,

Languidly oozing her stark red hue,

She can be found in the stains of a hospital bed,

Her cardinal complexion clashing with their bleach-white sterility.

 

She flows through virile veins,

Through sinew, tissues, and gristle,

And even in death,

She lingers until she is no longer needed.

 

She tirelessly, perpetually dances through life,

Her lively, cardinal force weaving itself into everyday existence,

A vibrant, rippling dress of ruby accentuating her sways and bows,

Cherry red lips brightening her face,

Her hair a fiery, luscious mane of crimson curls.

 

She is the vital life force that connects us all,

Her garnet tide surging within every living creature,

Ultimately releasing itself through labored, dying breaths.

 

She effortlessly slides under warm flesh upon inception,

And is the last to leave before the Reaper arrives.

 

    Hell Dweller – Eternal Damnation Is A Mindset

 

Hell is here,

Hell is now,

Fire and brimstone does not rain from the Heavens,

It savagely smoulders and churns beneath my crown,

Turbulently blazing through gray matter ‘til it’s black with soot.

 

Shrill cries produced by wicked, gaping maws,

Urging me to extinguish them,

Demanding that blood be shed,

Begging for that sweet release,

Their tones maniacal and warped,

Their tongues twisted and cunning.

 

Barbed talons constantly raking me back into everlasting flames,

As I listlessly heave my butchered, raw body towards the Gates of Hell,

Only to be savagely ripped away time and time again,

Into a bottomless trench brimming with neuroses and despair,

Its slate waves of madness drowning me,

Devouring me,

Violating my mouth,

Coating my teeth in slick oil,

Oozing viscous tar into my lungs,

Settling in the pit of my stomach like stone.

 

The devil is not just on my sagging shoulders,

He’s become a permanent fixture on my blemished back,

Cloven hoof marks imprinted like ink,

Jagged scars lie where His hooks have been,

His baritone voice snaking its way into my subconscious,

His fiery eyes tearing my soul asunder.

 

-

 

Hell is here on Earth,

It is not hiding under crust and mantle,

It is not a place of magma rivers or echoing shrieks of anguish,

It’s splattered on the walls after a suicide,

It nests in the shadowy recesses of neurotic minds,

It crawls into bed with you as Depression,

It melts you through Mania,

It suffocates you with Anxiety,

It renders you dysfunctional and invalid,

Breaking you down more with each episode,

Adding more weight onto your already buckling frame,

Whipping your scarred, weeping back with its weathered cat o’ nine tails,

Then voraciously sucking the life out of your husk of a body,

Leaving behind a discarded skin wrapper,

With nothing left to give.

 

The Sweet, Sultry Kiss of Death

 

Upon a night as black as His spectral, billowing robes,

The moon radiantly shimmering in the twilight,

A somber, hushed, chilled visitor comes to me,

Silently drifting through darkened hallways,

Effortlessly gliding into my disheveled chambers,

Peering down upon my lily-white fleshed body,

An expression of resolute determination filling His gaunt, skeletal visage.

 

He tenderly brushes a pointed, icy hand across my cheek,

My living skin warming the tips of His fingers,

And as I languidly open my turquoise eyes to stare into His silvery irises,

He affectionately smiles,

Leaning into the waves of heat emanating from my red-blooded frame.

 

“My Sweet, I heard you calling. I heard your prayers.”

He whispers ever so delicately,

Lovingly tucking my chestnut hair behind one ear.

 

“I heard your tragic song of sorrow.”

 

I drink Him in,

His kind yet cadaverous face,

The piercing frostiness of His presence,

His funereal attire,

And the fact that I feel overwhelmingly serene with Him by my side,

As if the very nature of me is singing His praises,

As if I’ve been waiting for this exact moment my entire life.

 

“You did?” I listlessly sigh back,

The whites of my eyes widening, glistening faintly through the shadows of my room.

“I did. Now let me ease your pain, let me take it from you.”

He threads His bony fingers with mine,

His arctic breath pleasantly tingling my face.

 

Glossy tears well in my eyes,

A sea of bittersweet happiness cascading through me.

“How did you hear me?”,

I choke, His cool disposition enticingly pulling me in even deeper.

 

“I’ve heard your crying and your death wishes,

I’ve heard your suffering and your agony.

I’ve read the woes in your writing,

I’ve seen the hurt that you carry.”

“I know your soul is restless,

And that your heart is heavy.

I know you.”

He says, wrapping another glacial hand around me,

The sensation of melting ice sinking into my alabaster skin,

As He draws me in closer into His macabre, seductive web.

 

Our hungry faces inches apart,

His frosty touch caressing my vulnerable anatomy,

Begging me to take a dive into His deadly waters,

I breathlessly ask, “What do we do?”

 

“Let me eat your grief so that you no longer writhe in it,

Let me bottle your tears so that they no longer flow,

Let me reap your soul so that it no longer weeps,

And let me swathe your heart so that it no longer beats.”

 

“Let me kiss you,

Let me suck the life out of you and take it as my own,

Let me extinguish that dim light behind your eyes,

And replace it with a refreshing nothingness.”

He murmurs,

His frosted lips already pressed against mine.

 

I lean into His supernatural charms completely,

I relinquish my mortality,

I offer Him my essence,

And He thirstily swallows it all,

Physically gripping me with all His might,

Tightly forcing me up against His ossified form,

Inhaling my entire existence,

And exhaling His lethal, polar air deep into my failing lungs,

Freezing my blood in its tracks,

Piercing my heart,

And enveloping my brain in a sheet of ice.

 

He mutely pulls away,

My lips a shade of sapphire,

My eyes shut permanently,

And calmly leaves the same way He arrived,

Traveling towards His next bleak house call,

His next customer warbling their own funeral dirge.

 

Emily Mulligan currently resides in Virginia and has always been creative, ever since she could put pencil to paper. She spends a great deal of time focusing on her numerous creative outlets and is particularly devoted to her writing. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, immersing herself in nature, spending time with family, and doting over her two cats, Mally and Tink.