THE COUNTESS
The manor’s air weighs heavy in my lungs,
Like a butterfly I’m caught within a web.
I cannot take propriety’s dainty mask off,
The torment never shows on my face.
So many days of melancholy fits here,
Into these extravagant rooms.
No restless spirit can be locked away in here,
I belong in livelier salons.
And at last, on the silent stairs, your step creaks in the darkness.
***
For the dawn-night comes as you do,
It dims even hell itself.
Darkness makes oaths disappear,
Decency collapses.
If I could steal even a shred of comfort from the night
And scatter it into the morning light,
After dawn, I would never return
To this accursed home again.
***
“Here even the walls have grown severe eyes.
They follow every step we take.
Your sheets by day must remain cold,
When the cruel sun passes judgment.
And onto your shoulders settles that same weight
That marks even a stranger.
And the bottomless well of tragedies
Was said to be hidden here.
And I return once more, and the gazes will not find us
through the curtains. Dangerous vices deepen…”
Morning changes most beautiful words of night,
Recalls the promises I’ve betrayed.
And the theatre goes on just as it is meant to,
My lies are what they love in me.
I wish one of us would die,
Let at least one be crushed by the manor house.
I breathe smoke, craving the freedom of night,
For the sweet, chloroformic love.
“Beautiful countess,
Like the woman of the tales, unbound.
Flee, countess,
This manor’s grim soul
Is so merciless.”
For the dawn-night comes as you do
And tears hell apart.
Darkness collects all debts,
Begins the spiral of sorrow,
Steals away all solace,
Sifts it into the early light.
And it will always return
To this cursed home again