Oh to have Loved a Demon

Dorian Cleavenger is an artist and comic book illustrator who specialises in sensual (and sometimes outright erotic) fantasy and supernatural women. I stumbled upon his picture ‘The Hazing’ when a friend posted it on Facebook. It is a stunning work, but more than that – it provokes one to wonder at the story behind the chained angel and why she is imprisoned so.

The image (see link at the end of this page) inspired me to come up with my own back-story in the form of this poem.

Oh to have Loved a Demon

Oh, to have loved a demon
To have felt his passion and fire
Against my flesh of cool, drear purity
To have felt his hungry kisses
On lips that had hungered for nothing
To have felt the scratch and scrape of his claws
On skin that had never shown blemish
To have felt his hard, harsh press
Into places that had known but softness and delicacy
Oh, such a love

A forbidden love
Such as repels Heaven and Hell alike
Slamming shut eternal gates
Consigning me to this pit
And him to the deepest ocean
There, chill weight of water will quench his fire
And eons pass in dark gloom
Here, chained, I await the viper’s bite
To feel poison in my veins
As they say I poisoned Heaven
To die in writhing agony
Then awake, but to die again

See, a snake creeps along my thigh
Forked tongue tasting my fear
As once my lover’s tongue tasted my ecstasy
Fangs snapped forward to stab
As once I welcomed the impalement of my lover’s embrace
The convulsing agony washing through me
As once my body wracked in sweet climax
But this is all I have to remind me of him
And so I welcome it

I welcome the chill that spreads through me
The shivering then slackening of envenomed muscles
The fog as my eyes film in death
Hanging here, from this stake
A sacrifice to the Powers that Be
I will not repent
Though this Purgatory outlast eternity
A harsh payment for a moment’s joy
But worth it
With all my tortured soul, with every death I die
I scream my accusation to the Eternal Realms
It was worth it!

Acknowledgement:
Thanks are due to Dorian Cleavenger for producing the image 'The Hazing' that so inspired me.