RUBY RUBY
Artwork by Sarah Butkovic
Limerence like wine, pouring over me in shallows of sparkling ecstasy, draining my veins of their blood until they take on the hue of your sweet fuschia nectar. I’ve fallen through the neck of the bottle and down to the pit, with no room to breathe and no oxygen in sight. Everything around me is a glimmering, aphrodisiac torrent. Everywhere I look is magenta, titanic lips.
I don’t want to look at anything else now that I saw you. I don’t want to think of anything else now that I’ve thought of you.
You smiled at me, if only for an instant. Amidst the hundreds of heads reigning over my own, bulbous and oblong and slicked back with sweat, I watched you look down and meet my eyes. Mine and mine only. I know you aren’t in love with me but you could be if you wanted to.
Your gaze was like the piercing of a dagger through the stomach. Sharp and ferocious, ironclad and chaste until diving through the cherry-pie innards of its unencumbered victim. The blade comes out soiled, deflowered, sticky warm and crimson, unable to return to its sterling state of purity. I am the sacrifice, and you the dagger. Once you looked at me, I entered your mind forever.
I’m every face in the crowd. I’m a permanent memory now.
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Sarah Butkovic is a Chicagoan born-and-raised. She recently received my MA in English from Loyola University Chicago and has published creative and journalistic work within and outside an academic setting, including a news piece in a local Chicago paper.
Profiles:
Website: https://somethingwrittenbysarah.blogspot.com/
