Scheherazade's Story: The Puppet

With the dance of his fingers,
the puppeteer sway the puppet
to the tune of the melody.

On stage,
the puppet's strings were invisible.

Under the spotlight,
she appeared to be alone.

Watching her repetoire of
sorrows, love and longing,
the audience cried at her pain,
scowled at her overdramatic antics
and smiled at her contentment.

But they saw nothing
of her happiness she basked in.

The hidden smile of her puppeteer
from the dark shadows of the wings.

The closeness of their duet,
him leading her with
firm but ever so gentle tugs at her strings.

He gave her life.
And the ability to dance,
making her the girl that many men swooned after.

He was her god.
The giant that controlled her universe.
She worshipped him.
Feared him and cared for him.

Nevermind that
they were always far apart,
they were always connected by strings.

Always,
but not forever.

"Find happiness without me."

The puppeteer snipped off her strings,
and sewn her heart back.

She can now do her own dance,
one that tells of how
it's like of being loved.

But she doesn't know
of any other dance.

Who is she without him?

If there's a dance of being loved,
she needed him to teach her,
show her how it's done.

He never did.
Neither did he fulfill
all the empty promises he made.

Without him,
she will leave her strings
trailing into the empty wings,
pretending that he is
at the other end.

Then smile and giggle geefully
at the imaginary life
the puppeteer painted
with his lies.

She merely doing what she does best---
loving him.

And perform that duet that
now speaks of her love,
alone.

---------------------------------------------------------

Christmas is due to be here soon,
a year should be enough.

Scheherazade's Silence

After a thousand and one nights,
telling her stories
had become a habit.

Tugging at the curls that now
flow to her heaving chest,
it seemed to her
that nothing had changed.

She stared intently at the
ivory flake that
swiveled in suspension,
and sank to the bottom of
the snowglobe.

She would then
pick up the globe
and turn it upside down,
again and again.

Ogling hungrily at
that particular snowflake
doing its routine continously.

Every now and then,
much to Scheherazade's delight,
the snowflake would do
an extra flip in
its usual somersault.

It was her action hero.

She couldn't help
but swoon.

Crushing her smile
against the glass orb,
her intense urge to kiss
smothered all the resistance.

She could almost feel
his lips.

Sheherazade paced
silently through the
palace's lit corridors.

Her passion
was made a secret,
pressed against her heart
like a precious ruby
she would die to keep.

The jewel was hers
and hers alone.

To lament about.

To engulf herself
in pleasurable pain.

In every darkness,
even beneath her eyelids,
she would see his face.

In every silence,
after inhaling each breath,
she would murmur his name.

In a thousand and one nights,
he had many names.
But only one
stayed true in her heart.

She would repeat his story,
to satisfy the king's hunger
for her surreal tales.

The murderous schizophrenic
would lick her words
off her lips like honey,
and keep her alive.

Time made it
an obligation to
reminisce his warmth.

It is as inevitable as
the snowflake's finishing act of
falling to the bottom
at the end of
its rendition.

Scheherazade would awaken as
the queen once again,
to find reality cold
without the warmth
of his hand.