Sahara
Slimy, Slippery Slender fingers
Slide from my inner thigh
Up across my stomach in disguise
Making S waves
Diagonal on my side like sand dunes
A monsoon of dust arrives
Carving knots in the pit of my core
And ripping butterfly’s wings for fun.
I could see a serpent’s shadow dancing along the wall,
And the silhouette of hills, become a mirage.
Goosebumps run up and down,
Chasing each other like we did when we were kids.
I thought he was my friend.
This person that I have known
For half of my life use to tie friendship knots
And was now weaving nooses.
Scaly limbs slither between my breasts
They wrap a noose around my neck
And I can’t …breathe.
I … I can’t speak.
I am defeated in the heat
of this desert he had made of me.
Pull down on the handle of my trachea
Like an escape from quicksand. PULL DOWN.
Make a cork of my esophagus.
His forked tongue shoves down my throat
Grasping my voice, I am choking on stage in front of an audience
Of one. Alone with him between sheets
I want to run away.
I want to wake up from this nightmare.
I …I want… I want to… I want to feel.
I want to feel…something… other than him…
But, these desert waves of nausea knock me down,
I am drowning in a riptide of a current of control.
Mine was left between the ice cubes of my empty glass
On the countertop of his kitchen.
I am dehydrated, exhausted and weak.
My eyes dilate
as wide as the black hole he created for me.
Intoxicated and hypnotized by the hollow eyes of a black snake…
I am tangled in his dance, spun dizzy by his drink,
Left alone in the desert sun.
I thought he was my friend.
