Scavengers of Love

With savage abandon
the vulture devoured the segments
of those poor, withered hearts
she fed him from the palm of her hand,
swallowing down the remnants
of love.

Her eyes were like a moonless night,
semi-sweet bitter smile turned upon
her lips, she had a soul cold as the grave
on a winter eve, and where her heart
should have been there was nothing
but an endless void.

This was as close as she ever came
to feeling something almost human,
while at first, still warm, alive,
frantically, as a frightened bird
it beat within her hands.

Pressed against her face,
she breathes it in, the taste of blood
still fresh upon her lips,
spreading like liquid fire
through her deadened body
in these moments, she transcends
into something more than just a statue
of flesh.

But too soon, that cherished treasure,
the once beating heart becomes still,
dead within her hands, nothing
but scrap meat for carrion feeders.

She sighs with repressed rage,
quaking despair, she craves another,
all those poor lost broken ones
who in moments of agony
and grief uttered words they will never
be given the chance to regret.

Forsaking their hearts, willing
to throw away the gift they never
knew they had been given,
the undeserving wretches,
she will grant their wish.

Her children of death,
the scavengers of night,
she sends them forth like avenging angels,
to descend, retrieving all those
discarded, unwanted, bemoaned hearts,
to bring to her own wanting, waiting hands.

Upon her neck she wears a strand,
more valuable than pearls and diamonds,
containing little tokens, reminders
of what she can never truly have,
remnants of hearts borrowed
from the careless.