Eternal Flame

She remembers a day

when wherever she would go

there were whispers of freedom

and she didn't understand.

Everything in her life spoke to her

of bondage and of pain,

of hearts torn from their place

and thrust out onto the open road.

She struggled with her thoughts

and her memories

trying to place them somewhere

where they might not bother her

pushing and pulling and bleeding

everywhere as she sought to find

a place for her heart to call home.

Where could she go?

Who would understand?

Gifts to give

but no taker who could accept them

for what they were; her body, heart and soul.

Her eyes had searched the world

creeping into the souls

of those who would allow her entry

but there she found nothing

but emptiness

and her loneliness grew

more with each passing day.

She could feel the fire

building up within her

but there was no outlet

and no-one to fan the flames.

So soon they failed

into smouldering ashes

to wait until there was one

with the strenth to return them

to life again.

Though the void, her emptiness

seemed it would not be filled

she never gave up hope

soul seeking every pair of eyes

and every movement for a sign

of the one who could capture her

and make her his forever.

Years passed like this

while the girl's loneliness grew

ever more confusing

forcing her to understand

that she might be alone in a world

of people who would never know

the longing of her heart

and the yearning in her belly.

These things she dreams

are things of the past,

or so the world would have her believe.

And so her mind wanders

tripping to places

long forgotten by many

and dreams harbored by a few.

She stops seeking

and begins to dream

her head spinning

with every new desire

that awakens in her heart and heat.

Then one day when all was lost

she found them gazing at her

as though undressing her with their eyes.

Not one, but many

so that she flushed. Her heart

had forgotten about her desires

and she didn't understand

so that she turned away,

afraid. But still they

stared at her with a hungry

lust in their blazing eyes.

But she had forgotten then

what it meant to dream of the days

when she would be called

only by the name given to her

and where she might have been bound

and owned by the master of the manor.

They tried to remind her,

twisting words and history and fiction

all into one blazing voice

so that she was confused, her heart

broken beyond repair, and she had no choice

but to turn away.

Then one day in the deepest

depths of autumn, one man

shown through the rest,

his eyes blazing through the crowd

as he watched her, yearning to make her

his own. But she turned away

afraid of the desire she felt

burning in her belly, making her want

to fall to her knees and beg him

for the chance to stay.

So with all the truth of

a master's heart, he unfailingly

pursued, eyes wandering and heart raging

ready to claim his prize.

He told her of the things that she

had only ever seen in dreams

and when he had done, she found that

he had spoken straight to her heart

and that there was, within her

the heart, the strength, the soul

of a slave.

Then there, within his eyes

that burn with passion at the very sight

of her frame, bound and beaten,

kissed by leather, held by steel

the grip of bondage around her heart

he takes her, and she knows

that the dreams of her past

the longing for times gone by

were not dreams but the fantasy

of a reality that she could only know

in the arms of the one

who had earned her heart.

Now where her body, bound in silk

encased in steel

and longing only for the touch

of the one who has claimed her

as his prize and his possession

his beauty and his soul

and she is his eternally,

bound by the eternal flame

which he has lit within

the belly of the slave.

Copyright ©Storm 2003