Barefoot in her grave.

Into her grave she rushed, her dead face flushed
with excitment and fulfillment.
She was late.
One moment longer in the warm and sanguineous world,
that throbbing,breathing land of living flesh,
and her undead life would end.

Descending into her crumbling casket, a slip of a ghostly whisp
that softly eased itself between the cool marble and the maternal earth,
she settled quietly, embracing the comforting stillness
and womb-like darkness of her tomb.

Closing those dark-ringed, death-fringed and desecrated eyes,
she sighed and smiled, her swollen, inflamed lips slowly opening,
revealing the glittering, blood-tipped
wolfen teeth.
As her heavy lids lowered, she sank into the non-sleep of the sad
and dreadful spirit that has been sucked from humanity.
Remembering, relishing the intense intoxication,
the deadly decadence and
the exciting thrill of the chase....

Quietly, she entered the bar,
the densely packed crowd thrummed with heat and life, pulsating and tempting her,
saturating her predatory senses, exciting her desire and igniting
the age-old fire in her hungry, soulless heart.
From the very start,
in the early days of Budapest,
in the shadow of the castle, along the riverbank,
the midnight skies and men's dying cries would make
her ice-blue eyes turn red.
From the dark green depths of Carpathian forests,
she moved onwards in time, in place,
east to west, an unwelcome guest
in each new land, her fabulous face
seducing, enchanting those hapless fools
who succumbed to her power,
not knowing their hour
had come.

Still further back, back to the pale young novice
escaping the strict, cloistered safety of St Bernadett's convent,
fleeing for one fatal moment
the silence and prayers;
a moment darkly sweet, as she kissed that
tall stranger, embracing her vampiric epiphany
whilst the wolves howled a sorrowful symphony
through the most blissful and blackest of nights.
Crimson visions soared before her innocent eyes,
lifting the curtain of lies
spun by the Sisters.
Her awakening was complete;
Anastazia, eternally damned in a swift heartbeat,
submitted her soul and welcomed the abyss.

The past faded away, her need for blood directing her, propelling her
through the crowd, to the tall, fair youth,
his untasted wine half-way to his open mouth
as he saw her approach.
Her ageless face and sensual lips
held him enraptured, captured his heart, as she brushed his cheek
with her fingertips;
holding his gaze in the maze of her whirlpool eyes,
she allowed him to wonder and fantasise
of delights yet to come.

Hypnotised by this harbinger of hell, he fell
in with her step, her shiny red heels guiding him out of the bar
onto the cobblestones of Hope Street,
her sweet perfume
stunning him into complete submission.
His forgotten guitar lay alone and unplayed amongst the noise
and the music of the students' bar. A lonely reminder of artistic promise
and promises unkept.
The scent of musk and gardenia filled the damp Liverpool air
as she led him on, the austere cathedral looming and forbidding,
yet she dared to ensnare him....
She glanced up at the floodlit tower, and laughed defiantly,
carressing the young man's face with her cool, soft hand, bringing his mouth
down to hers.
Such a kiss, such bliss, his eyes closed and he sighed....

She sank those sharp teeth into his soft, white skin,
hearing the startled surprise in his sudden gasp.
Then felt his unbridled lust as he clasped
her to his chest, his musician's hands searching for her silk-clad breast,
sinful images filling his mind, and without knowing why
he submitted to this tall stranger.
Such joy, such violent passion surged through his body, every nerve aflame.
She drank deeply.
He felt his life fading, his eyes dimming, heartbeat slowing
as he looked into those glowing,
red eyes. Confusion. Despair.
Allowing his slim, limp body to crumple to the ground, she left him
to die.

The church clock struck six.
The sky lightened in the east, a priest rushed by,
late for early mass....
She discarded those pretty and stolen red shoes,
left them in the rain and ran,

returning again to the graveyard, dodging the lovers and other
seekers of solitude.
She fled past the cathedral door, nevermore
to enter a holy place.
Finding her tomb, she stopped.
The autumn sun
peeped over the Georgian terraces of Toxteth,
and she quickly slipped out of sight, the brightness
of dawn issuing its stern warning of the dangers of morning.
And so she slept,
barefoot in her grave.