Hope is cruel and has no conscience

Rose colored flesh is now a yellow pale
Her smile, a stencil
that once spread like ink in water
is no more ivory than Monalisa's
The eyes, oh! the eyes, with the warmth of a freshly baked cookie
are empty, gazing her feet
His fingers linger no more
they've turned to icicle spears
And her blood slushies
the burning of her heart leaves a stench of rotten muscle
Words leave her brain and escape from the mouth
but only in whispers that sound like the feeble late night breeze
or an old man's wheeze
in a frequency only dogs understand.

She quietly dissolves her faith in a couple of rosary beads
and a bottle that renews its contents every few hours
that consume her more than she consumes it
it's the only place where she can float
in the liquid visions of his face in her memories
and in an ocean of his choicest pheromones.

The very foundation of love is shook and hammered
and on the verge of extinction
and all she does is hope
that one day the spell is reversed
as it did for a second
when lisps were mistaken to be words.

Hope is cruel and has no conscience, someone said.
So she will hope against hope
that her walk on part in this sitcom extends
and a ghost is reborn.