Vampire Sleep

Your appearance was the kiss of death.

But I digress--

To fully comprehend, we must flash

backward

to a lonely room, a twilight ago

Dark

Quiet at first listen

Motionless on the bed

stiff arms of stone

heavy, folded across a ribcage

that rises and falls because it must

The quiet melts away 

replaced by the muffled sirens in the night

stirred up by the moonlit covens of

sunless revelers 

Replaced by shrieks and moans

of an faux-orgasmic former virgin a floor below

willingly ravaged by the eighteen-year-old vampire-- 

A thousand former virgins won't slake his thirst

Replaced by the sound of time

Torturous

eternal

time measured in eons

Left alone with thoughts

that sink into the mind like

elongated canines in the jugular

And then--the sun--

At last, sleep...