Orpheus had met her eyes. That was that.

Her back hit the floor, life draining.

Death came quick, no use feigning

what Hades said upon his throne where he sat.

"Do not look back," Hades had said,

and her love marched to those words in his head.

The last step, he turned in despair.

If he loved her less, he wouldn't have dared.

So she wakes up again in the dark of the Hells.

The sobs wrack her bo...

The coffee shop is uncomfortably quiet and unbusy, a thunderstorm tearing its way through New York streets beyond the window. Julia and Wes have been split up for quite some time, but when he sends one of his handwritten letters, smelling like vanilla, enclosed with a flower, how can she possibly say no? How sweet he is.

Julia isn't cold. She doesn't fight or yell. After all, she hasn't been mist...

Dawnbreak casts a veil of pale autumn sun across the banks, a mist grazing the horizon. The cracks of a river splits the plains into two, gently washing up against the waterside. Salt-encrusted cliffs circle the open valley, a waterfall tumbling down, down, off the edge and crashing softly into the river. The world still sleeps - almost.

Bonaventure is running. He is not sure how long it has bee...

When I was eleven, I kissed a boy.

We starred in the school show.

He was bold, I was coy.

His name was Matteo.

After the play, we met backstage.

Did I know what it meant

to kiss a boy at that age?

The detention was well spent.

He left school before long.

My heart ached, not to know why.

I knew how I felt was wrong

that I was in love with a guy.

Years and years away, I'm a man.

A wife with ch...

Vita, Vita, belle of the night,

The maddening beauty; source of my plight.

Though beautiful, inattentive and leaves me cold.

A darker nature takes its hold.

I follow her to a dusky den.

I see her speak to other men.

Harlot! Harpy! She's mine alone.

So when she's done, I follow her home.

She slips into bed, but so do I.

She fights my love with a prey-like cry.

Dead and buried, but undoubtedly mine...

Our shoes in the hall,

toothbrushes in the same pot.

Two lives intertwined....

Pale streams of sunlight split the room into soft chiaroscuro. The summer turned slowly to fall, leaves afire and crisp in the autumnal air. They were closer than ever to the sea here, a wish of Marin's, of course - the water washed against the pierside beyond the window, bringing a soft squall smelling of salt and citrus.

Marin was in stage four. Her otherwise fair skin took on a light amber to...

Oh, the beauty of my cursed lady,

The maiden of unchaste.

Her haunting body, the only sin

I've ever begged to taste.

Trysts are not in my nature

I'm a man of pious honor.

But her hips and lips invite the crime

of vestal minds to wander.

Her eyes, her eyes! They be afire

like the fires of Hells nine.

The horrors of the fair of face

that call to soon be mine.

Save me, God, I love the devil's

te...

They had been lying beside each other in the riverside banks for a while, the tall grass and reeds crawling against their salt-kissed skin. It was still warm out even in the evening, when the sun had begun to set and cast whorls of watercolour pink and gold across the sky. The streetlamps would come on soon and bathe the hot, inky downtown in amberlight. It was pleasantly quiet, the maw of the woo...

No grave can hold my body down; I'll crawl home to her.

Her dark beauty renders the lifeless living and relentless in their worship with a warm kiss to their cheek, a whisper to their ear, and a breath to their lips. 'Twas my fate to her.

The earth was freshly turned my barrow over when she glided in through the churchyard, her draping muslin and vines befalling grave between grave. Her hands ...