kaleidoscope lies

It's the kind of fog that makes moonbeams glitter, dancing in evanescent starlight; the kind of cold that makes our breath appear, tangled together and I lost in your kaleidoscope smile.

The moist earth is frigid against my spine, stark contrast to you, running your hot, ragged breath across the valleys of my bare skin, the rise of my flushed breasts and the gully between them that you kiss. I could almost forget, in this moment, that you have presented me with a mask, that behind your flashing teeth you bare a wolf's smile (and you are predatory and ravenous). I let you devour me, and let myself pretend, for an instant, that you do this out of love.

Your lips flare red, a pretty shade of carmine, dappled by a bead of sweat that has settled in the dimple of them, and god you are beautiful, every damned inch of you (and I have seen every inch, your chest laid bare to mine and your skin exposed but you have never given me anything more than the superficial). I drift amid a sea of clouds, my eyelids sinking heavy and I wonder, have you always been this way?

Have you always wanted to taste the sun-kissed skin of the innocents who did not want to give themselves to you?

But I had wanted to give myself to you, because you are beautiful, molded perfection beneath flawless flesh (and who could say no to you, with your ivory smirk and supernova eyes?) I wonder if you notice that I am near-comatose, complacent to you now after all this time, but your heady panting tells me that you do not, that perhaps you like it better this way, pretending that I am prey, and that I do not want you (and I don't, not anymore).

We used to be so perfect -- that was before I knew you were a sinner.

After, you drape across me like you always do, brush my hair back sweetly and cascade your lips across my brow. You tell me that you love me, but I know you are lying; you do not love. You cannot love.

I sigh, murmur a repetition of the lie, smearing my breath against the hollow of your throat. I inhale the scent of you, so bittersweet and resist the urge to gag, turning my eyes to the moonbeam sparkles and tell myself that next time -- next time I will refuse you, next time I will find resolve.

But I know that I am lying.