The names of wishes

  were given to her,

  and she dances,

  giving movement

  and meaning

  to the words

  echoing in the

  the silent spaces

  of our hearts.

  The throne-room red,

  filled with fire and fury

  lit with braziers

  that cast her shadows

  on the walls and the floor,

  a mad dance to echo

  the desires of the people

  she leads.

  The wrathful season

  swells with tears shed

  in the bygone yesterdays

  lost in the endless silence

  of love and loss.

  See now

  the captured wishes

  held fast in

  the lazy regard

  of an angel

  standing at the cusp of dawn

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  awaiting the coming downfall.

  The people cry out to her

  to dance their pain away

  to dance their hopes

  into being.

  A war-torn emptiness

  rages through them

  like a storm,

  orphaned horror born

  of grief, terror

  of what the morrow might bring.

  “Dance for us,”

  they cry,

  scalded by grief,

  by passion,

  lost in the madness

  of living, the ennui

  of the endless

  day-to-day

  nothings.

  Mad pain

  born of endless failure

  dreams

  sinking into the oblivion

  of quiet despair.

  "Dance for us,"

  they scream,

  their voices ragged

  and hollow.

  “Dance for us,

  Queen of the Red!”

  She dances

  as she always has,

  then comes to a stop,

  standing in the silence.

  Unseen to all,

  tears falls

  from her eyes,

  because

  for all their wishes

  and sorrow,

  for all their passion

  and hope,

  She knows that

  these are people

  longing

  to long

  no more.