by Yuvthi Misser
lungs cracking underneath her weight.
she eats up the insults so i don’t have to,
pinning me to my comforting prison.
barely opening my eyes, a heavy finger grazes my
forehead.
“sleep, baby-girl sleep.”
my ribs don’t move anymore.
it seems my heart will maybe follow in its footsteps.
the swollen sores where my eyes should be don’t
feel like opening anymore.
“baby, we had a bad night. stay in bed.”
so it bleeds into a bad day, diffusing into a bad week.
blending into a bad life.
she picks up the little glow-worm of light
and smashes it into her mouth and i hear the crunch
of my sanity being swallowed down her throat.
“stay here with me, so I can protect you from
parasites like that.”
she’s the only thing i have and will ever know,
she smiles when she knows i am broken enough
so that the pieces can’t be put together for a while.
she somehow gets heavier when she lays on top of
me.
a black panther, with her weight spreading through
all parts of me.
i close my eyes as she purrs
“i like the way your pain tastes.”
[a visual representation of the panther with yellow eyes in darkness. Photo: Stephen Henning/ Unsplash.com]