Jezebel:
I fell in love with a Jezebel
Yeah, I fell in love with this Jezebel
My heart sprung fallin for this spell
I couldn't recognize these lies in the lights and bale
I fell in love with a Jezebel
Yeah, I fell in love with this Jezebel
All these trifes in a heart only caused a scale
I pray I never see that my soul’s on sale”
If ever the devil was born
Without a pair of horns
It was you
Jezebel it was you
If ever an angel fell
Jezebel
It was you.
Jezebel it was you
The cascading crimson dress beckons me to look.
Captivated, I acquiesce to the call. Like a crow I chase to see
the body in red. I’m truly obsessed
with what’s beneath the dress, but no need to guess, for [s]ample flesh is revealed.
The succulent, suffocating curves have hold of these wandering eyes.
I try to stop, haven't we all?
She saunters into the chapel as if she feels
at home. My eyes pull me after her. As a carrion feeder lured
by a carcass
I follow.
Silently she sits, one smooth
leg Crossed over the other. Slender waist
twisting slightly to face the lone, empty lectern. Dead
silence hangs
over the room, leaving the still air heavy.
She is surrounded by suits -- all black,
but she is vermilion. [In]toxication
has set in. I stumble inside, dizzy and dazed
I try to stop, haven't we all?
My legs drag
me to a seat at the edge of the room.
The bludgeoning
silence still beats on my ears. I spy her
bare arms,
bombarding my senses. My heart
pumps wildly.
Its constant and hurried throbbing now replaces the silence in my ears
and launches waves of algidity
Through my b--
“Hi, I’m Elijah”
Blink--Blink-- I see The Stranger beside me
as but an obstacle to my target.
“Hello”
I respond, heart cold and hard
“How did you know him?”
Ignorant
to what he’s is asking, but apathetic, I repel his assault --
“I did not know the man.”
--and maneuver past him, advancing to the site.
The affair is about to begin.
My Purple Heart beats bold as a battle drum
I try to stop, haven't we all?
I slink
to the middle of the room,
goaded by that forbidden fruit --
fruit so pleasing to the eye--
and slip into a seat next to her.
My palms, now cold and clammy, quiver slightly, like an arrow that’s found its target.
Her sickly-sweet perfume caresses me,
and I love it.
I peek at her and see
a tight golden necklace hanging
from her neck
with a fig leaf dangling
at the bottom of the chain
Barely covering any of her cleavage.
Her damask lips, that match her dress,
are pulled up at the edges,
simpering.
Rosy cheeks pink from blush
Golden hoops
Hanging
From her ears
Mascara on her long eyelashes
Drawing me into her tar black eyes
Tying hers with mine
Our eyes lock
Creating a nearly inseverable link.
“Hi” she purrs coyly
I swallow my Adam's apple.
“Hello”
“What's your name, sweety?”
“My name is Ahab.”
“Oh, I knew an Ahab. I hope you're just like him.” she says as she winks, artificially long lashes fluttering
She reaches for her purse
And produces a red fruit
“Would you like a bite? I know you're hungry. This'll hit the spot” she whispers seductively
“I have not eaten yet today. Will it even hurt?” I thought aloud
“No, it won't. You'll love it.”
She hands me the fruit.
I give in
again.
The bite is sweet and savory, but the fruit soon decays,
Leaving it a putrid vestige of its former glory.
She takes it from me before I can register what happened
And begins to stroke my thigh
“So why did you follow me here?” She murmurs, so close
I can taste her saccharine breath
“Well, it is not good for man to be alone.” I tremble
I try -- I tried -- to stop, haven't we all?
She begins to Snake her arm around me--
“Today we gather to commemorate the life of a great man.”
Begins a voice, breaking the glass wall of silence into thousands of shards
She hisses in surprise and retracts her arm
My eyes are instinctively drawn to the noise
and for the first time see what I noticed earlier,
A lectern
On an elevated platform
The man speaking --Elijah--
Wearing all black.
I look down for the first time at myself
Bloated body
Sagging lifeless
And clad in all black as well
“He was one of the greatest young preachers we’ve heard, but as we know, he could not treat his condition, common to many of us.”
Her hand grabs my leg and again strokes it
“Hey Ahab, you know I think I love you.”
Before I can respond, the voice starts again
“He managed to get by for years, but it caught up to him, and so he passed, indulging in his pleasure.”
The woman in ruby rubs my thigh harder,
Leaning her entire body
On mine
As if we were one flesh
But the voice rings out once more
“It was his sweet tooth. He couldn't help it. It was his lingering wound, the only arrow that could chink his armor. Another one lost to this epidemic. It may seem like just a harmless stray arrow killing one person, in the midst of this war we are in. It may not seem like a big deal, but if a thousand stray arrows are released and only one-tenth of them hit, that is still one hundred people. We must stop this problem while we can, if we can, if it is not too late, which it may be.”
She takes my face in her hands
And presses her lips to mine
And I feel something deep within me
Go into her
No longer mine
Hers forever
“Before we look at the body, let us pray.”
But the woman,
Still leaning on me
Still rubbing me
Brings her lips close to my face again and whispers in my ear
“I want you Ahab. I know you want me”
The nervous butterflies in my stomach become a maelstrom of chaos.
But I push the feeling down
And her away
And bow my head
And close my eyes
“… and Lord, we know that this young man rests with you, for we are sure he has confessed and repented of his sins. Lord, may you end this epidemic. So many young men with a heart for You have been lost to this condition Lord.”
She grabs my leg a third time
I take her hand in mine
to stop the rubbing.
Her smooth fingers
Interlock with mine,
But I ignore it
“We pray for your help, You are the only one who can at this point. We pray this young man will be the last we see die from this. In your holy name we pray, amen.”
My head rises
And my eyes are finally open
“Now, let us take one last look at our beloved Reverend.”
The monochrome ocean rises
And walks towards the body
I hesitate to rise, but I must know who passed.
As I leave my seat next to her, Jezebel grasps my wrist
Tar black eyes
Begging to stay
I shake her hand off of mine
But she follows
And links her slender arm around mine
And I cannot free myself
So I move into the line
The closer we get to the body
The tighter she clamps onto me.
“We should just go now. You can come to my place. It'll be great.”
I shake my head, too determined to find who this young man
was.
Now we are before the coffin.
I wriggle free from her iron grip
And look into the box.
My breath escapes my mouth without my knowing
A mirror lies in the place of a body
And I see my haggardly figure
Hunched over the coffin
My pale, sickly, but bloated face
With red lipstick stains on my neck
And on my face
Like open wounds.
I turn around to Jezebel
But she is gone.
In her place lies
The fruit
With a bite out of it.
Red skin turning brown,
I take it in my hands.
The overly-sweet
Smell of decay
Assaults me, so I set it back down.
I silently scream for forgiveness,
But outwardly remain cold as my heart
The viewing concludes and I stroll out of the room, as if no one has died.
I join the numb specters around me, walking through one another blindly.
Conscious of their death,
But oblivious to the consequences.
Has anyone tried to stop it at all?