Once Upon A Time

This poem is about how words from someone else can be so devastating.

There you lay, motionless, your tongue slips between
your lips, recessed fangs hidden within your cheeks,
forever stalking me, awaiting a moment of inattention,
that you may slink and slither your way into the shadows
about me, then pounce upon my heart, sinking those
diabolical syringes into my soul, poisoning it with your
cruel, ravenous words, reeling me over in excrutiating
pain, forcing me to grasp for a sickle, that I may sever
your heartless words and salvage what little
life remains within my kindred spirit.

You look at me, you smile, and a moonbeam glances
off your eyes, casting a sparkle about them,
leading me astray and into a false sense
of security within my own den.

Then, as I slowly succumb to the warmth, drift off
into the endless, unguarded, blissful sleep, you
glide upon the air, wrapping yourself about me,
squeezing the breath from my lungs, those
cold-blooded serpents eyes, red with raging fire,
their black slits elongated and dilated, reveal the
treachery of your expression as I battle furiously to
escape your strangle-hold, and the venom I
know you'll poison me with as your tongue
slips between your lips once more.

Once upon a time, you were gentle as a lamb.......

Once upon a time, the lamb, became the snake......

© Nichole Letitia Byrom

8 March 1998