PROTECTIVE

I opened my chest cavity with no regard for the fact that my heart might spill out. I delicately pushed my spindly fingers through skin and bone and muscle and ligaments until I had created the gaping wound you see before you.

It sounds poetic. Like liquid syllables and molten words. It’s not. It’s ugly. I opened myself up to keep something safe and sacred. Sacrificed my pumping blood to cover someone else’s shame.

I threw myself on the tracks for a promise of an uncertainty and I’ll take that with me to my grave. Where I’ll lie, with an open chest, and a broken heart, with your rusted key imbedded in my bones. The key to your heart, to your secrets and lies. I’ll take it with me when I go and I’ll wear a black mourning veil until you return, or I die, which one ever happens first. 

CORNERED

He’s a wolf in wolves clothing. He makes no bones about his malice. It slides from him. Slithering from that overly saccharine smile.

“How do I always get cornered by you?” I say it aloud as though he might answer, he just pushes forward, backing me into that corner and snarling his muffled snarl. I watch our silhouettes dance along the concrete wall. Like two young lovers, making music with our bodies. How different everything looks in black. What it really is seems almost unbearable to me.

I hear the zipper go down. His sweat drips onto my forehead.

“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in”. I say that aloud too. He looks at me, confused, the metaphor lost on him. He pulls out, zips up, slamming the door behind him.

“How do I always get cornered by you?” I whisper it now to the dark.