She Wore a Yellow Jacket
it danced …
like a drunken ballerina
on her tongue,
tumbling gently as it’s sugary orange
mantle melted and seeped,
properly absorbed by the dermal lining of
her mouth and throat,
and sent like manic heaven to her synapses,
turning angels to demons,
fondnesses to fear,
and her feet to rubber, as she
walked her best sway across the ceiling …
this poisoned potion -
this diversion -
was all she had now other than grim memories,
a responsibility to little smiles
kept her breathing and moving and doing,
but she was a mannequin mom -
a scarecrow on strings that she pulled herself,
a skeleton of guilt and horror
culled in the darkest
deep of a woodland torment and terror,
far too horrid to ever get beyond it …
what she did - what THEY did - out there,
should only be the things of nightmares and
ghost stories and “B” movies,
yet, and sober,
it was as real as the flesh on her bones -
the flesh she somehow saved
from a fate many others were lost to,
(others cared for … loved),
a fate no one should ever know or see
or even dream about,
and yet … by HER hands …
she placed another cube on her tongue,
this one purple,
and tried to let the thoughts
melt away with the sweet -
let them roll down her throat and turn to fantasy,
but all that came were the faces -
the once dear faces,
and the twisted rationalizations that somehow,
in the midst of cold and fear and
starvation and insane desperation,
turned friends …
to food.
* This is a free verse form I created called “SUJETALI” - I hope you like it! (Definition by request) *
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, May 18, 2023
Copyright ©
Gregory Richard Barden
|