You're mine,
In this hour of reckoning.
No-one can take you from us,
That which was never there.

You gave me
Your hoarded cache of Chlorpromazine,
A frozen smile etched on your beautifully-transformed face.
I slipped you then, my shiny new gun.

We sat there in the cleansing autumn air,
Hands woven together,
In webs of forelorn co-conspiracy.

We kissed,
In a hailstorm of dizzying emotion,
Whipping our life-worn souls,
Into a wild frenzy of delirious self-destruction.

"Now no-one can hurt us ever again,
You murmured in hesitant, halting low tones,
And when they come in the morning,
Planning to push us into another empty and mind-numbing day,
Those anticeptic, white-clad "professionals",
How appallingly dangerous they are.

"Will they care when we're gone?"
I asked, swallowing the last bitter pill,
And picking up the shiny gun, nestled cozily in golden leaves.
"No", you replied, a wan smile flashing
On your full, child-like lips,
"But this is for us, not for them".

"Please, my love, just close your eyes,
And kiss me into a wild flurry of delirious self-destruction
Yes, it feels so right!
Now pull that trigger as I taught you".

At that moment,
Nature wept openly,
And raindrops touched with salt dotted dead leaves,
As two beautiful children lay dead in a pile of Her rubble,
Left over from summer's fine greenery and lush, budding life.

Jane Wanklin
1997.