The Colour of Completeness

by Kristine Schubert writing as HaydenStar

What curiosity has lit within this bare torch!
Those images of dark dungeons, leather and latex and chain,
the painted corsets and boots of commanding women,
the deep voices of men in hoods and capes;
the smell of pain and the muffled cries inside cages deep from the mouth of Hell.
What perverse and damp stonewall have I descended upon?
And yet, an executioner was not there at the entrance to this gate.

I stood there, balancing between these two worlds.
And there in that moment, a moment that glanced back to my hidden years,
was the image of a woman kneeling.
Each step was weighted with the breath of hesitation as I approached,
noticed the whitewashed walls and felt the floor beneath my feet like the taste of iced tea on a summer afternoon, sweet and cool and smooth.
I watched this woman kneel, her body like formed silk,
positioned and poised with an aura surrounding her of blue, backlit by the moon.
She turned her head looking up at me.
My breath sharp in a shudder as this woman gazed at me.
I knew her eyes, her smile.
I had seen this woman before, from the corner of my eye in shadowed light.
My hidden years had known her.
And slow, like the stretch of dawn,
as the damp walls and the cries of agony from dark caverns came no more,
faded into the bright walls of understanding,
this bare torch saw the fire.
Then, as I felt the warm flickering tongues licking my wounds of denial like the kiss of home,
I knelt beside this woman who had waited for me, who was me,
and felt the colour of completeness.

(C) Copyright 1998 Kristine Schubert All rights reserved. Please do not send by electronic means or post to any bulletin board or web page without the author's written consent.

My Thanks in a Private Dawn

by Kristine Schubert writing as HaydenStar

Outside, the vanilla sky moves on,
beyond tall oaks and fallen leaves of
red and orange and fading green;
past yellow headlights of the early morning commute.

The sun has not, will not, peek from that
vanilla sky today. I have captured the sun
and am keeping it for when you wake.
I will place a bit of the sun in your coffee.

I lay awake hearing the sounds of you asleep,
the world, and hold my wrists up in the white air,
black leather circling snug, and the tiny
lock on each silver buckle,

and I remember the savory hours before,
the click of the locks and silk swoosh of rope
as your hands tied me as you desired. How
your eyes smiled as mine wept.

And now, your coffee is here on the bedside table
with plumes of rising heat, and I kneel down, hold
within my hands my captured sun, offer to you,
   my Mistress,
the glorious morning of my gratitude.

So that when you turn and stretch and open
your tanned eyes, when your dreams still
lay on the tip of your tongue, you will see
the morning, and taste the sweet butter of
   our private dawn.


(C) Copyright 1998 Kristine Schubert

All rights reserved. Please do not send by electronic means or post to
any bulletin board or web page without the author's written consent.