In the pallid cathedral of a single flash,
where light itself forgets its own name,
a visage ascends from the marrow of mirrors—
shorn of every filament that once dared to whisper “time,”
the skull a moon divorced from its orbit,
floating in the white lacuna between two heartbeats
that never learned to beat.
Beneath the brow’s austere parapet,
two obsidian seeds—wet with the dew of unshed galaxies—
gaze outward as though the world were a rumor
they refused to ratify.
They are not eyes; they are eclipses
wearing the mask of eyes,
each pupil a black chapel
where prayers arrive already answered
in the negative.
And then—o crimson heresy—
the mouth:
a wound that learned seduction
before it learned to bleed.
A single slash of arterial pigment
carved across the alabaster plain,
it is the only flag planted
on this continent of silence.
It does not speak;
it pronounces.
It does not kiss;
it colonizes.
It is the last remaining evidence
that color once existed
before the universe filed for bankruptcy
in the court of monochrome.
The garment beneath—
a lattice of albino serpents
interwoven into a shroud—
clings like the memory of breath
to a body that has forgotten
whether it was ever alive.
Each diamond of fabric
is a frozen sigh,
a net cast to capture
whatever soul attempted escape
and failed.
This is not a portrait.
This is the aftermath
of a star that committed ritual suicide
by swallowing its own spectrum.
This is the moment
after the last color was executed
and the executioner
applied its blood
as lipstick
out of reverence.
Behold the sovereign of negative space,
the emperor of zero kelvin,
whose reign is measured
not in years
but in the length of a stare
that makes eternity
blush
and look away.
where light itself forgets its own name,
a visage ascends from the marrow of mirrors—
shorn of every filament that once dared to whisper “time,”
the skull a moon divorced from its orbit,
floating in the white lacuna between two heartbeats
that never learned to beat.
Beneath the brow’s austere parapet,
two obsidian seeds—wet with the dew of unshed galaxies—
gaze outward as though the world were a rumor
they refused to ratify.
They are not eyes; they are eclipses
wearing the mask of eyes,
each pupil a black chapel
where prayers arrive already answered
in the negative.
And then—o crimson heresy—
the mouth:
a wound that learned seduction
before it learned to bleed.
A single slash of arterial pigment
carved across the alabaster plain,
it is the only flag planted
on this continent of silence.
It does not speak;
it pronounces.
It does not kiss;
it colonizes.
It is the last remaining evidence
that color once existed
before the universe filed for bankruptcy
in the court of monochrome.
The garment beneath—
a lattice of albino serpents
interwoven into a shroud—
clings like the memory of breath
to a body that has forgotten
whether it was ever alive.
Each diamond of fabric
is a frozen sigh,
a net cast to capture
whatever soul attempted escape
and failed.
This is not a portrait.
This is the aftermath
of a star that committed ritual suicide
by swallowing its own spectrum.
This is the moment
after the last color was executed
and the executioner
applied its blood
as lipstick
out of reverence.
Behold the sovereign of negative space,
the emperor of zero kelvin,
whose reign is measured
not in years
but in the length of a stare
that makes eternity
blush
and look away.
The Sunday Circle