these darling gentlemen will paint this night red and settle storms between their picket-fence white teeth. this night will be theirs and the devil couldn't seize from their claws. monsters donned in cashmere suits were these boys. (lion-hearted, fox-tongued, and wolf-born) they were hellbent on making god tremble and bow down in their grace and make the earth shudder beneath their feet. but one has yet to claw his way through lupa's womb and into the land of gods and beasts.

his heart is pounding can you hear it? there's a tremor in his bones can't you hear it? the bass? the beat? rumbling in his bones? the symphony of guilt playing like wildfire in his ears? its gnawing—ravaging at his conscience like ravens upon fresh corpses beset on the gloomiest of days. because he's going to kill you, darling. you'll be a face he's never going to forget: the hard lines--the harsh lines; drawn across your temple. (thirty eight he counted. his warm blooded mouth murmured) the diner lights—bright as moonshine. the gold curled tresses upon your head worn like a gilded crown, the frown carved upon your lips, the wired jitters jostling within your crossed legs. all a memory his mind will devour only to be disgorge in his nightmares. but he stares from afar, as time tauntingly ticked with deathly cadence. (in twenty-nine minutes life will start slipping) oh, how sick he felt inside.

they all watched her. their eyes searing onto the shape of her figure. her rose-tinted ocean eyes gaze out the window heedless towards their carnivorous stares. they were painted with false innocence but she didn't know. and who would? they were perfect boys—such sweet boys like them—such nice boys like them—such kind boys like them (they'd never harm a soul) built on the foundation of spoiled ichor guts of man-made american white dreams with creme of the crop charm ingrained in their ivory jaws and pearled incisors—polished wax wrists adorned with devil's diamonds and soft pretty pink lips. these were good boys—these were gentle boys—these were honest boys-

these were—murderers.

such was a dirty lie--it ate at his throat and coated it with grime—(what a nasty taste)—it made him want to heave his own rotten guts on the cracked dining-floor and strip the deceit from their skin. it made him want to scream the damned truth and thrash like a sinner plagued by hellish macbethian flames—

"WE ARE NOT GOOD BOYS! WE ARE NOT NICE BOYS! WE ARE BOYS MADE FOR BLOOD AND BONES LOOKING FOR ICHOR AND GLORY! WE ARE NOT SWEET BOYS! WE ARE NOT KIND BOYS! WE ARE HOPING TO STRIP GOD OF HIS TITLE IN ATTEMPT TO FEEL DEATHLESS! WE ARE FILTHY FUCKERS! WE ARE FILTHY LIARS! CASHMERE PAPER CUT-OUTS OF THE DEVIL. AND OUR SINS ARE THE ONLY THING WE LOVE TO COUNT MORE THAN OUR MONEY—"

but she hadn't looked their way. from prying eyes-she didn't seem like type to die.

she wasn't the type of girl to hold the stars in her bosom or caress moons between the crux of her fingertips (she certainly wasn't soft spoken, gentle boned, or rose scented) she wasn't the kind of girl to split her heart into crescent halves and hold them in the tender roots of her palms, and spoon-feed them to the mouths of endless nights. nor was she the type to burn rivers to watch oceans starve, or forge words of fire from scolding scalding twisted lips, (she wasn't cruel carved, vixen built, or bitter-ivy sweet) and snap her teeth in tempest wrath or ring her red nails dry with the blood of boys.

she didn't seem like the type to die but alas night had struck and the hunt begins.

out in the stillborn winds she couldn't hear him—hear them. along the hollow cobblestone streets, clandestine in every flick of their feet, silence sewn in the leather soles of their heels, the darkness tethered to their stone silhouettes, the sweet silk of the their suits were soaked in shadows sweat, and the wings of nightfall fostered them under a starless sky. faces masked with heads of beasts, (birthed from the jungle, burrowed from a den, cracked out of moons) like predators they basked themselves in satin blackness blessed by stitched shadows. the world seem to grip it's axis with glassy stillness—waiting-halting —for the falsetto of death's lungs to ravage the air as prey scampered with thin legs and fine strides.

"strike now." he felt the whisper rack his bones. then the lion bellowed fiercely. "take your claws and strike them." but his hands-paws quivered in tremors of weakness. (you can't do it can you? such a weak boy you are—something wicked in his head had stirred and shrieked—)

"WHAT IS A WOLF IF HE DOESN'T HOWL? WHAT IS A WOLF IF HE DOESN'T HUNT? WHAT IS A WOLF IF HE DOESN'T KILL? ARE YOU WEAK DARLING? ARE YOU WEAK? BECAUSE THE WEAK DON'T SURVIVE HERE FOR LONG. PUPS LIKE YOU WHO COWER AND CRY HAVE THEIR INNARDS PLUCKED FROM THE TOMBS OF THEIR BELLIES. BE A WOLF; BE A PREDATOR; BE A MAN; BE A GENTLEMAN; AND MAKE US PROUD DARLING."

and so he lurched his blade with the strength of a broken bone and left his heart of glass to shatter upon the street. oh how such a howl pierced the soundless night-

his butchering blade grinned with murder and struck her flesh like a brutal kiss. ripping into her stomach with cleaved kindness. sanguine streams surged from the gallows of her bowels-smearing his lapels and marking his skin with the scent of ruby ichor and bleeding strawberries. she looked like an all-american martyr—with bloody scarred skin, celestial knotted curls, and bright death-blue eyes— he just kept going and going, his wolfish claws crimson kissed in sin—until the wounds etched in her skin seeped into moses' rosebush, thorns unraveling upon her cadaver with spools of petals pooled in her blood. the monuments of her ribs were split like the red sea and oh lord there it was - her heart pulsing with the beat of a lifeless goddess. he hooked his molars to the piece of her tender soul— is this what it meant to be immortal? the meaning to being godless and godlike at once?

and so the lion put her to sleep and said he didn't fear god —(and god smiled)

the fox scoffed at hindrance near his heels —(and god laughed)

and the wolf had cried for mercy as if the knife had struck his own beating heart —(and god pitied)

but let the fire start! hear the incense sing! listen as their voices screech with madness!—because these gentleman prowl and are the masters of night!—because darkness offered them a home where light had scorned such troubled youths causing; boys to be beasts and girls to be ghostly flames!

~art~