Lime

If I am green, let me be lime green—

a corrosive light that burns the eyes of memory,

a hue that festers in the marrow of deceit.

If envy coils in my veins, let me be Lady Macbeth,

her hands forever crimson, her whispers rattling the walls,

her madness rising like smoke from the ashes of false loyalty.

If I am a monster, let me be Frankenstein’s,

stitched from shadow and spite,

from venom whispered into ears I once called sanctuary.

Some presence—once familiar,

close enough to touch, yet distant as the grave—

fed the lies that sought to rot me from within,

smiling as the words took root,

as if loyalty were a candle meant to flicker and die.

I trusted in the quiet covenant of bond,

but it turned to rot in the mouths of envy.

You struck as Brutus struck Caesar—

a dagger hidden in devotion,

a kiss of frost along the nape of trust.

I believed as Juliet believed in a poison’s kiss,

as Ophelia trusted the sunless waters,

as Desdemona believed the gentle tongue of a serpent.

And yet the betrayal came,

quiet, perfect, insidious—

a frost creeping through chambers once warm,

a shadow writhing in the hollow of bones.

I dwell now in that shadow,

the whisper behind every door,

the chill along the spine,

the monster born from your hunger and greed.

I am the villainess you wrote into being,

the storm you fed with envy’s black teeth,

more eternal, more venomous

than any loyalty you ever desecrated.

I am the ghost that follows,

the echo in your dreams,

the raven perched upon the windowsill of your conscience,

the unseen hand that tightens at the hour you would sleep.

Let it be known:

envy summons monsters,

and betrayal—delicate, sweet, whispered—

finds its home in the marrow of the trusting,

where it will fester, immortal,

until the end of all things.