She is my marionette, her face painted vibrantly like mislaid satire. Strung from the trees like party streamers, her capillaries are wavering trapezes in the spring wind. Half-hitched to the branches of my allegory. A swing-set deteriorating and rotting from neglect. A fashion model corpse I've always loved. The elmwood is streaked with ruby from my heart, an apt souvenir from the days I died (bleeding countless yesterdays onto kitchen tiles). I swear, for a second there I watched her eyes tear up and as her skull unravels like a jigsaw puzzle, I realize that "forever" lays dormant in decay. I have become the wooden puppet master, the director of this magnificence. We are fused together like fable: I am the heavens and you are the filth beneath.