Serving the Risk

I don't know what I actually said to him and what I only imagined as the keyboard. Coaxed. The lamb in amongst the lion's cubs. Roaring still louder than any of them. Because its survival depends on how genuine its lie sounds.

The prince with glass slippers in both hands. Cinderellas everywhere. The fairy tale confronts us with flowers. The scent telling us how it must look. Even if we can't see.

It must be true. Because otherwise, everything they've told us is a lie. It must be time to molt again, because this skin is getting tight. And these scales are failing.

So much weight where once there was none. So much weight in all this nothing.

I miseld you. Misled everyone I've ever known. Into thinking I was still alive.

Feeling your own heart break so much. As if that bridge goes in only one direction.

Being different is the worst fate and the best. Seeing adversaries in every friend. Because what else could they want. Other than to hurt me. Stub out this cancer like a butt in an ashtray. Prove to themselves I am not the same.

Chewing gum in the lion's mane. God under their fingernail as the point takes place.

Every direction wrong.

Serving the risk in useless doses. Limp veins won't carry the proof.

That I tried.