TERRIBLE BEAUTY

By John D. Kelly

She tells him he’s

terribly attractive 

as she flashes

her steely-blue

eyes like scalpel-

blades numbing him,

dumbing him,

cutting and flaying –

visually taking off

each square inch

of skin

from his body

as a bloodied onesie

in one full look.

In one fell swoop

he’s stripped

naked, seen through.

She doesn’t stop there.

She bewitches him,

takes him totally

unawares, straps him

into a reclining chair

and begins butchering

(ever so delicately)

through resisting

tendons, muscle, fat.

His pelt now hangs

draped from hooks

on a tenter beside him

reminding him

of the veneer

of skin-deep flattery

now ringing hollow

as he reflects in

a congealing pool below

that cast of bloody skin.

Once again, the toll

of pain resumes.

Sinews and tissues

cede to bones bared

one by one until

all that is left is

the frame of a man –

not half the man

he used to be. And yet,

somehow, his heart’s

still beating; broken

but quietly pulsating.

Beautifully-red

in a white-ribbed cage.

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