Beneath the thin shift of my red silk nightgown,

the one with the handkerchief hem,

the one you gave me on my birthday

that landlord look high in your eye,

resides my skin, my nakedness.

Spaghetti straps bisect my dichotomy

chafing my shoulder like a peculiar midnight sunburn,

the surface of my skin pooling a smooth lie.

Beneath

stacked between the sticky spiderwebs of my veins,

lies lay bundled.

I am a cracked and brittle terrain,

a testament to my own artfullness,

I conceal my flaws from the judging eye

with the clever glamour of gleams

and sheens bought with the coins and notes

I earn, then part with,

seduced by the wonders of marketing.

No matter the subcutaneous ache,

until I cannot conceal anymore

until the

ravens come to pick the flesh from between the

spaces of my toes,

until I bleed right through,

I'll pose here prettily for you.

Her kisses stained the soft flesh of my shoulder

Like a midnight sunburn.

Oh, how it throbs with every quick flutter

Of my heart.

An romantic evening at the beach,

The waves softly caressing the shore like

A lover may shim her fingers quietly along

My sharp jaw.

Her touch so sweet,

It blinds my eyes with tears and chokes me

With the gentle care she shows.

Ah love...how it heals so many years

Of bitter woe.

Wildfire torched his soul

Two entwined together

in embers of devouring

sparks of want.

Darkness illuminated

combustion heated

flaming midnight sunburn

lighting up naked bodies.

He lay with her

in scorching passion

touching fingers

and tongue caressing

emotions flickering.

Rising and falling

in smoky inferno

a haze of need.

Sea of flames

touched flesh

crescendo searing

ardor and lust

explosion of fire

moist bodies

entangled quiescence.

Bodies sear with sultry passion

Succumbed to Master's need

Bathe in a fiery night

Lovers combust beneath anothers' feed

Appetite sips away the lust

Purity turns to greed

Nakedness exposes this midnight sunburn

Pleasure slowly begins to bleed

~ADayDreamWriter

Derek pushed the artifact across the table, weighing his client’s expression with feigned indifference. His client’s surprise was a tangible thing. That was a woman that rarely showed her emotions to the likes of Derek. It made this job all the sweeter.

“I must say, Mr. Cline, that I didn’t believe it was possible for anyone to acquire this for me, especially you. How did you pull it off?”

Derek tried not to smile, “I told you that I was the best thief there is.”

“Indeed.” She slid a case across the table and responded, “Here is what was agreed upon and a bonus...in case I need your services again. Perhaps one day, you will be more willing to divulge the tale of this acquisition.”

Derek boldly kissed her hand, because he felt like being bold, grabbed the case, not even bothering to see if she was being honest with her payment, nodded toward her as he rose, and offered her a simple, “Perhaps…”

---

Derek watched the man push the bottle filled with a liquid blacker than midnight across the table. He was not pleased.

“I said I needed something to truly make me the best thief there is! You bring me what? A bottle of ink? You expect me to pay you for this? I have the score of the century, I ask you to find me something to give me an edge and….this?”

“I do expect you to pay me for this, Mr. Cline. Be grateful I like you enough not to ask you for triple what I’ve asked. You are a great thief. This WILL make you the best one, once you drink it.”

“You better hope so, or I will be getting every penny back from you, one way or another.”

The man smiled, “Of that, I have no doubt, Mr. Cline. So, do we have a deal?”

---

Derek drank the liquid, thicker than ink. Felt it burn like an oak-aged whiskey as it went down. That was ice cold compared to when it filled every pore, every cell.

Don’t drink it in the light, and once you learn to use the gift of it, you need to avoid the light as much as possible.

Derek looked down and saw how his skin turned blacker than midnight. He laughed silently as he slithered from shadow to shadow with his new ability. His body could bend in impossible ways in the dark and the shadows. But the light, it burnt like a midnight sunburn. While shrouded in deepest black, the black absorbed the light, and the light did burn.

Stealing the artifact was easy. Avoiding the flashlights of the guards were the tricky part. Even when the light passed over Derek, all they saw was a shadow on the wall; all the while Derek gritting his teeth from the midnight sunburn the light caused. It was worth it though, for he now was truly the greatest thief in the world.

It's hard not to get a midnight sunburn here. Even at night when the light-shields surround the planet and make it bearable on the surface, I am usually the only one to come out and stare at the majesty of the triad of stars that scar our planet. I always walk through the spray of protectant that is required before I walk above-ground, but my trysts to the barren landscape are so frequent that my skin is a constant angry red. Granddad thinks it's funny and calls me 'Rosey.' Most people call me 'Scarlet' because I look like the Scarlet Angels in the Records.

I chuckle when I think of the Records. Supposedly they are the account of how our people ended up on a planet not designed to sustain any type of life, but most of it seems like a fairy tale written to explain our impossible existence. They say that a ship was leaving what was once Earth 8 because of genetic experimentation gone wrong, but they had mechanical problems that forced them to land here on Lutum. There are so many unanswered questions that I am shushed for in school. "Where did the shields come from? They couldn't have had that type of technology on a hastily assembled settlement ship." "How could the Scarlet Angels have survived even 10 minutes while assembling the shield? It's impossible that they could've come back with just bad sunburns. We can't even send ships out. Why didn't they burn up?" "Why is our planet named Lutum? It's Latin for dirt. What a dumb name." "How has Latin even survived this long?" But they're never answered. I'm chastised for making light of the Angels "who saved our people from certain death" and for questioning how we survive under the blazing trio of suns.

"What are you doing out here, Rosey?" comes Granddad's soft voice, interrupting my musings.

I turn and squint at him through the diffused light flowing through the shields. His leathery skin is hanging off his bones like the laundry hanging in our quarters and he walks up the hill gingerly as if the ground under him is likely to disappear. I'm more worried about him disappearing. He's nearing his end, I'm sure of it. He meets with the community doctor more and more frequently and he comes outside less and less. He was the one who helped me see the beauty in the blazing night sky, but now he rarely revels in it.

"Feeling the heat of impossibility and discovering the truth." I say. The same response he always gave Mama before she succumbed to the epidemic that passed through our community a few years back. Mama never understood our fascination with the surface. She wasn't even married to Pa on the surface as was the tradition. Her only sight of the triplets was when they glared down at her dead body as we buried her.

"I gotta show you something, girl." Granddad frowns, "Before they burn it."

There's a midnight sunburn,

from my time down south,

where you kissed me,

left your mark like a cottonmouth.

I've been bitten,

I've been hooked.

Caught in that moment,

when you didn't stop to look.

Strange deeds,

happened when I wasn't looking,

how'd I miss the smell,

of your animosity cooking.

You say we were a comet,

say you don't want to break up,

that's there's no alternative,

I blink off my makup.

I gave you a piece of my heart,

Tried to pack it in bubble wrap,

not let you know,

what small bones you could snap.

If what I said wasn't,

as glittering,

it's because it's easier,

to be blistering.

And we never started bickering,

because while you were loudly simmering,

I became small,

my shouts became whispering.

So I leave the building,

pride bent out shape,

because I asked if we could stay,

and I saw "no" on your face.

And I sit on the hill,

grass pricking my feet,

a daytime sunburn,

forming on my cheeks.

So many are afraid of the creatures that lurk in the shadows. The ones that only come out at night. But when day breaks and the soft blades of sunlight shine across the world, such fears seem to melt away, as if by the heat of the sun itself. 

These people long to see the day. Long for the warmth of the sun to meet their skin again. I'm not afraid though. In fact, I think there is something so beautiful about the night. The way the disc moon lights the sky in an ever-changing saucer of white. 

If I could only reach up towards the stars, I would, and peel each one back into my fingertips for keeping. 

To see and feel the dark depths of night would be a dream. But nothing more than a dream. For I can never see or feel the coolness of day's slumber. Nor the bright specks that dazzle the dark sheeted skies. Never look upon the moon and admire how wondrously it changes. But there was one time...one time that my curiosity could not be contained...one time where my insides felt like they were pushing at the sides, like they would burst from the seams if I did not look. 

It was barely a sliver, but it scorched through my body like fire, burning deep into my skin, as if I were made of paper. It licked across my face, closing my left eye for good. 

I snapped the shutters back down, but I could feel the cracks, the bubbles beneath my fingers. 

My face never healed. But that was not the only scar it left. There was a deeper one, one that had etched right across my heart. Now every time the sunsets and the quiet descends upon our world, I can feel the midnight sunburn upon my face, but I don't regret it. I don't fear it. I just remember the one time I looked upon the beautiful indigo sky.

The sky was never blue

and you never loved me.

The sun shines alone in a black ceiling,

lacking Neverland. 

There was no other option,

no other light to cling to

and in the middle of the night,

you burned me. 

Bathing in the yellow light of the

Big and Little Dipper,

I learned how to paint my toes

and tug down my dress zipper.

Between the reeds of cattail

with mud caking my hands,

I dug a hole of blackness in my

head and in the lands.

Mary held the toolkit

and Magdalene the mirror,

and when I wiped my breath from the glass

the reflection grew no clearer.

I spoiled slowly with the moon

as each sliver ate the next in turn,

and crumbled like dust in the dirt

a temple slashed by midnight sunburn.