split-mouth

I wrote this poem in forty minutes or so under the pretense that I would be performing for my creative writing class. I didn't end up reading it, but I was left with some quality nonsense to share.

She came to me
Through the urban smog
And skyscrapers piercing the oceans of fog
Whose drifting wisps of looming rainfall kissed their scum-streaked windows.

She came on that humid day
With ill intent hidden beneath her khaki sleeves,
And the mud-stained, murderous weapons she held revealed to me
Just how lonely a woman can be.

She came while I was lost in this
'Altered state of perception,'
And I fought to keep my frown in check
As I searched for the emotion in her masked face,
Her expression, her lack of grace,
And her cracking voice as she asked me,
"Am I pretty?"

And I lingered there, (for a minute, at least,)
Absolutely petrified,
Wondering how to respond to the way
She stared at me through sunken eyes
And I lingered there for a moment or two,
And I chased the shadows on the pavement until
Through uncertainty and will to live,
I responded with a quiet but final, "Yes."

And she waited there for no more than a second,
And I watched in fear her eyes grew livid
From her ghostly intuition telling her that
I was a liar, and I had my doubts!
With angry eyes she rooted me down
And peeled away the surgical mask
Which concealed what I had hoped was no more than
A precious, feminine pout.

However, one may easily suspect
How dire luck and hope coincide
When, perhaps, a romantic will hope
For a less severe challenge, or a liminal hymn
And one may suspect how upset I was
When I saw not a pout, but instead saw a mouth
Whose corners were shredded from lip to ear
Whose maw appeared rotten, infested with demons
Whose resonant voices resolved to kill

And she spoke again, with no barrier present
No cracking of tone up the vocal column
And she sung to me her liminal hymn
Transcended words, transcended emotion
As she asked me
"Am I pretty?"



And she
Drew her
Scissors … blades separated
Fingers steady
And
She
Did
To
Me
What
He
Did
To
Her
Yes
Yes
yes Yes YES
But she still made me see.