Look at what you’ve done.

With fire in your hearts and invisible stones in your hands,

With pitchforks and accusations ready to thrust upon anyone,

You find glee in their downfall,

In her downfall,

Cackling among the crowds as the wind of your hatred blows her ashes away,

Into the tormented cerulean seas of her mother who came before her.

And her mother.

And her mother.

You attended her parties, ridden with euphoria at the sparkly newness of it all,

Girls carrying their heels down marble staircases, men shooting whiskey and drunkenly trying to catch her eye,

Above the graves of the all other women they’ve burned,

Spins a mirrorball of a woman,

Her broken edges and shattered pieces making her all the more exciting,

All the more fun to dangle under the brightest lights.

They cheered when her husband died,

Adamant that it was her heady, whimsical, shiny life that caused his death,

And cheered even louder as she continued to blow money,

Being ludicrous with her card game bets, 

Flying off to some ocean-breeze rendezvous with some plaything of a man,

Throwing crystal glasses at plaster walls,

And then laughing hysterically after,

Laughing so hard that tears would come to her eyes and her mascara would run.

That was when they decided she was having too wonderful of a time.

Towers of champagne turned into pools of it, 

Instead of reveling in it, you glare.

What used to be fun is now a little too flashy.

Her charming, red-painted smirk is starting to look like the smile of a serpent,

Her witty remarks and sarcastic quips morphed into weapons meant for nothing but hurt.

The slit of her silk dress draws far too many wanting eyes for people’s liking,

Yet they wait with baited breath for the next time she’ll wear something similar.

She looked too thin to you, abnormal and ghostly, as if she hardly ever ate,

Then you noticed her corsets were getting a bit tighter, the usual rouges that adorned her face and lips becoming more scarce,

Yet surprisingly she still looked...happy.

God, she must’ve really let herself go.

You hated her.

All of you did, and you had no qualms about making it known amongst yourselves,

Your hatred boiled,

Nettled that it didn’t have a good reason to be poured out of your chest,

And sadistically elated when it realized it didn’t really need one.

You tried to burn her, you did this,

You showed up at her door with stones and receipts, 

With every reason you can dig up from its grave and every glint in her eye that seemed a little bit wrong.

The last time you stood on this porch was when you were ushered out at midnight,

The dwindling chandelier lights begging for everyone to come back and dance a while longer.

This time, she opens the door with venom in her eyes and stinging words upon her lips,

Calling you all foolish, weak, high of a faulty sense of power that comes with breaking someone.

Her words shoot to kill, a lone voice hurling insults back into a cacophony.

She slammed the door shut.

You and the others went home that night, cursing her name, wishing her out of your wretched town,

Wishing she’d just disappear as quickly and entertainingly as she’d come.

Yet you still showed up like that every day,

She stopped opening the door the third time.

The townspeople holler slurs up to unmoving mansion windows and silently drawn closed curtains,

There’s jeering, taunting, mocking, and the most minute bit of desperation,

Daring her to come out but wanting it at the same time,

Wanting more than anything another reason to call her crazy.

There’s whispers around town that at the interlude of dawn she makes her up the seaside bluffs,

Standing at the cliffside with fury in her eyes and witchcraft upon her lips,

Catching her bottom lip with the rocky edge of her teeth, 

Seething with rage as she sends her regards to Hell.

She wears no cloak, no sinister hues of blue or impossible dark shades of black,

But they swear she’s a witch.

Her youthfulness, it’s too alluring,

Her beauty, it’s fake,

Her kindness? Even more so.

How could someone so evil possibly be kind?

A month went by and the mansion stayed silent,

The townspeople assumed the woman had gone, simply fled the town, and they were right this time,

The woman was gone, never to return again.

Weeks later, another woman stood on the porch of that seaside house,

She’d pulled up under the soft evening sunset in a shiny black car,

As she glanced around her, she noticed things:

Scuff marks on the wooden porch step railings,

Cracks that extended like the long limbs of spiders on the window frames,

And a door so difficult to open you’d think the house was ancient.

And now had her hand placed musing on the door, simply admiring her lavish new home, completely unaware of its history,

Unaware of how the ebony wood under her palm was ingrained with horrible memories of the townspeople's failure, a tormented mad woman, and the hatred-ridden ideology that let it all happen.

The townspeople watched from their windows.

And they hated her.

And just as they will hate every woman in the town intent on having a marvelous time.

Needless to say, the first woman’s parties were a thing of the past,

So was her presence in the town.

She’d turned into drinking stories passed amongst friends and visitors like folklore,

Bitter old men in dive bars spinning their versions of an old wives tale about the lovely woman who went mad.

She was cruel,

Tell me,

She was vile,

Do you think,

You’d never have met a more wicked woman.

Snakes bite

And what a shame

When stepped on?

That such a nice girl 

Because I think they do.

Just had to go and do that.

Look at what you’ve done.