The Tiger and the Flowers

I read the book they hope will sprout flowers of remorse in my damned soul as the sun breaks through the prison bars. 

She comes to me more like a dream than a memory, standing on Denmark Street sandy hair whipping across her face, dark skirt dancing about soft lined thighs, and knee-high boots that could break a priest.

She brushes aside the strands to reveal those emerald eyes, that painted skin, those razor cheekbones, those crimson lips. “Sarah,” I whisper out loud, the other man in the cell shifts uncomfortably in the bunk below.

How you rattled my heart, with those eyes on that May morning and the nights of endless music that followed. Why did the song have to end? 

As the axe came down against her skull I knew she would be eternal. No other would see her like this, she would never fade or grow old and she would always belong to me.

Love is a hungry tiger and unrequited love will consume you until it is as if you never existed in the first place.I begin to laugh, the man beneath protests strongly, but I can’t hear him. 

I'm still laughing when he drags me from my cot and snaps a heavy shot across my cheek with a mighty fist.

I laugh as I pin him down and smash his head into the concrete floor after a combination of my own. His skull makes a wet squelching thud on the second blow between my blooded fingers buried in his hair.

The laughter stops as he goes limp. I pull the broken remains of his nose to mine “Sarah!” I hear myself scream, it rises again and again. I'm still screaming her name as they drag me away to the gleeful cries of my fellow inmates.

My throat hurts and the screams fade to pitiful sobs. Yes, flowers will grow.