The Musing of the Slightly Insane

Beautiful

I am beautiful.

Like an empty vase painted in the most pleasing colors.

But not so beautiful that any would run.

That is something few understand.

Vampires -- We created the mythical creatures to be human bait. Their faces are perfect. Their voices are alluring; their bodies sculpted to produce the ultimate sensuality.

But that is second rate human bait.

Humans like imperfect things. Perfection is eery; frightening even. Humans fall for what they think they can get.

The boy across the table believed he could get me. Now he looks into my eyes, eyes that I can make say anything, and believes I am his.

We exchange words that mean nothing to me.

Conversation is an art form, and I am the master.

I sit at a piano and my fingers dance across the keys; pressing the key that means laughter at the perfect times; trilling through the inside jokes; batting my eyes when he ques me with his; flashing my beautiful imperfect smile.

But all of it is paint on the surface.

I feel nothing but anticipation.

It is the only thing I ever feel.

Anticipation for the day I will disappear and leave a jagged hole in him where the human dance he saw me dance had become the beating in his chest; the reason for his living.

The look they all give me when I finally let them see the emptiness beneath the paint is burned into the photo album of my mind; the same look of horror; of pain; frozen on the faces of a hundred men.

Anguish.

You see, to be human bait, you must be human. You must be an empty shell for them to fill with what they love. And when you become the sole embodiment of all that they cherish, you can take it all away. The lovely thing of it is that you don't have to bother slitting their throats; or killing their families. You can simply walk away. Walk away and show them the depth of the nothingness they have mistaken for love.

It breaks them so bitterly that death would be easier.

That is what I await.

I become their ruin. Every other woman who stumbles upon their battered souls must reach across the vast chasm I have left. Scarce is the woman with the compassion for it.

And even if she is able, she will see it in his eyes that every move she makes unburies the memory of me further.

I stare at the warm, full, living man across from me and relish the thought.

Every time he is kissed he will only feel my cold unfeeling lips on his.

Every breath he takes will taste of my poison.

In every hand he holds, he will feel my claws.

In every pair of beautiful eyes he looks into, he will see my reflection.

Dark. Empty.

When it the time comes I hardly need to speak.

The pain comes when I cease my work at the piano, and no words come at all.

Cold unfeeling silence.

It is as the resonant sound at the abrupt end of furiously played notes.

Just memory remains, but turned to nightmares by the overwhelming nothingness.

I have done nothing worthy of prison; or death or torture. Not by the laws of any land. Yet the footprints I leave are in the ashes of burning hearts.

I am a monster of a different kind.

I am beautiful.